


Cheap (Bad) Dance Moves

by slexenskee (Sambomaster)



Series: Forever Future Funk [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Demons, Harry is too OP but fuck it, Immortality, M/M, Necromancy, OP!Harry, prolly taking this down soon, what could go wrong?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-08-19 22:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8227097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sambomaster/pseuds/slexenskee
Summary: Hadrian is the youngest Demon Prince of Hell. Whenever he's not attempting to be snapfamous, bothering his fellow demons, playing absurd amounts of 2K16, or just indulging in sloth and lazing around in Hell, he's actually known as the most ruthless and dangerous of all the Princes of Hell. He has vast armies under his command, endless power, domain over immortality, great hair - he's got a lot of things, okay. So he’s still at a bit of a loss as to how this human Dark Lord managed to summon him of all demons. Or, you know, why he's actually bothering to stick around and help him with this whole 'immortality and world domination' gig.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse. I'll prolly take this down because who knows if i'll ever finish it.

**_// cheap bad (dance) moves  //_ **

**_//_ **

**_// part one / IF YOU LOVE ME IN GROOVE CITY //_ **

 

 

The way his old man tells the story, there was a time when humans truly lived in fear of Demons.

 

They were feared, exalted, worshipped and scorned at equal turns; humans were a confusing bunch and rarely agreed on anything, so Demons tended to rotate the spectrum of human sentiment once every century or so. That was a little beside the point though, it did not matter what, exactly, the humans felt for them; the point was that they remembered them at all.

 

These days humans seem to have forgotten all about Satan and his Princes of Hell; aside from horrendous cinema representations, and marginally better representations on _Supernatural_ , Hadrian very rarely saw references to them at all.

 

They didn’t even recognize him, the deadliest Prince of them all, wandering about the city streets with a pretentious hat and a sweet pair of kicks. For the most part, they either thought him a questionable hipster or a surprisingly poorly dressed college graduate. To be fair, back in the day when even speaking Hadrian’s name was banned on penalty of death by stake or drowning, and only the truly evil or truly desperate dared to call upon him, they still didn’t really know what he looked like either. It’s not as if there was any real way to know, aside from his awful and uninspiring portrait in the _Ars Goetia_. Unlike today, where Hadrian’s prolific insta following could pick him out of a crowd anywhere from Seoul to San Francisco, despite the fact they had no idea that he wasn’t actually just a questionable hipster with great hair and shoes, but a Demon Prince.

 

At any rate, these days Hadrian doesn't have much to do by way of wreaking havoc on civilization and owning up to his reputation as the prince of death and calamity. He spends most of his time listlessly wandering his way through eternity and getting into petty drunken arguments on Twitter. It's not as if he doesn't enjoy this life, but occasionally he’ll reminiscence on his time as a servant of evil with sentimental nostalgia and wonder where all the time has gone.

 

He’s not bored, persay. He’s just -- not _engaged._ Nothing inspires him anymore. Eventually he’s going to conquer social media and then what is he going to do? He supposes there’s always professional gaming, but even the thought of trolling everyone in Rocket League doesn’t rouse much else but a mild interest from him. He supposed he could join his brothers in bureaucracy management 101 and take up a desk job in Hell, but he's really not about that life.

 

This is what Hadrian contemplates as he finds his feet dragging him off to the side of the street, where a muted peach awning yawns over the sidewalk, a brief reprieve from the sudden downpour.

 

Humans dart passed him, cursing liberally about the weather. Hadrian slides his hood off with a scowl of distaste, rearranging his hat as he fights half-heartedly with his damp hair. Weather. Why must it always be so temperamental? They never have this problem down in Hell. Which is unfortunate, now that he thinks on it. Hell could really do with some other weather patterns aside from scorching hot and eternally burning black hellfire.

 

“So we meet again, Mr. Calamity and Chaos.”

 

Hadrian blinks, focusing out into the faceless, formless crowd sifting through the rain and steam. He blinks again, before turning to the left where a few pieces of perfunctory patio furniture are pushed up against the storefront.

 

A little girl with twin pigtails stares up at him with gleaming eyes. She props her head in her hands, swinging her legs beneath her.

 

It takes a moment, but then Hadrian is frowning. “Oh, it’s you, Death. Would it kill you to look like something _other_ than a pedophile’s wet dream?”

 

“I happen to like being jailbait.” Death protests. “And you have no room to talk. You look like you could be the third-singer of an angsty teenage boy band.”

 

Hadrian is insulted. “Why am I third?”

 

“Because the first always looks like a girl, and the second is always forgettable.” Death waves his hand vaguely. “You’re the perfect mix of cute and effeminate but still mostly unremarkable.”

 

Despite his general apathy towards reality at large, Hadrian is not quite bored enough to get into petty arguments with Death about the aesthetic state of boy bands. He’s above that, anyway. He sniffs pretentiously, crossing his arms as he turns up his nose the other way.

 

“Do you have something of actual importance to tell me?” Hadrian drawls. “Or did you really come all this way to tell me I look like Harry Styles?”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself - he’s a lot hotter than you are.” Death snorts. “And of course I’m here for a reason. Do I ever do anything without one?”

 

Hadrian stares at him flatly.

 

Death stares back.

 

Rain continues.

 

Eventually Hadrian scowls darkly, breaking their staring contest. Death doesn’t technically need to blink, so it’s not very fair.

 

“Well? Are you going to tell me? Or am I to guess?”

 

Death tilts his head, blonde bangs sliding across his forehead and into his big, baby blue eyes. “What do you think I’m doing on Earth?”

 

“I honestly don’t know, and quite frankly, you’re too boring for me to even want to guess.” Hadrian blinks, straightening up as a thought occurs to him. “Wait, is someone starting a genocidal campaign? _Without_ me?”

 

Death sighs. “Humans have figured out how to commit mass genocide without you since World War II.”

 

“Just wait till they start having to fend off alien invasions. Then they’ll be summoning me all the time again, and then we’ll see how much they know about genocide.” Hadrian retorts smugly.

 

“I’m looking forward to it.” Death drones, bored.

 

Hadrian is about to reply, when the cafe door creaks open and a young waitress shuffles out holding a tray. “Sweetie, your smoothie is done. Are you sure you don’t want to sit inside?” She frowns with concern. “The weather’s really taken a turn for the worse.”

 

Death grins at her with the sweet smile of a small child. “Oh, that’s alright! Look, it’s already clearing up!”

 

Hadrian turns back to the street; the clouds are parting at an alarming rate. Too quick to be natural. He pivots back to spare Death a long, unimpressed glance. He definitely did it on purpose. Hadrian had half a moment to wonder why Death would bother to change the weather at all, before the waitress is setting down the large drink in front of the little blonde girl and turning to him.

 

“Hello sir, did you want to come inside?” She gives him a sunny smile.

 

“Oh, he’s with me.” Death drawls imperiously. He turns to Hadrian, his smile turning slightly menacing. “Why don't you come sit with me, big brother?” That is not at all a request.

 

The waitress giggles. “Well aren’t you two just the cutest pair of siblings? Did you want anything too, honey?”

 

Hadrian spares her a tight smile. “I’m fine, thanks.”

 

She nods, returning to the interior of the cafe, leaving Death and Hadrian to their table alone.

 

Death stares at Hadrian.

 

Hadrian stares back.

 

The little girl slurps noisily, returning to swinging her legs. Hadrian is just getting annoyed enough to break their staring contest again when Death beats him to it.

 

“Hadrian,” he intones, solemnly, as he pushes his smoothie away. “I am in need of your assistance.”

 

Hadrian raises a brow. Now this, he wasn’t expecting.

 

“My assistance?” He repeats, warily.

 

He can remember the last time Death needed him badly enough to actually lower himself to ask in person; death, chaos, and a lot of saving the world ensued. Suffice to say it had been a rather catastrophic event that Hadrian wasn’t all that eager to repeat. Death rarely asked him for anything, mainly because Death hated him. If Death was a superhero, Hadrian would be his arch villain. They were mortal enemies. Okay, mortal enemies that often ended up shit faced together, were in the same fantasy football league, and occasionally had hate sex. The point remained that Death was responsible for, well, things dying, and Hadrian was responsible for things that never died. He was the only Demon Prince capable of granting immortality, after all.

 

And Death still hadn’t forgiven him for that one time he pretended to be Death and gave those dumb kids some powerful, death-defying objects. In his defense, he’d assumed they were all dumb enough they’d die anyway, and he had been right. It wasn’t his fault one was marginally smarter than the others and eluded Death under his cloak. And he ended up dying anyway too, so Death really just needed to man up and get the fuck over himself.

 

“My assistance with what?” Hadrian prods again, eyes narrowed with caution.

 

Death turns to him very seriously.

 

Then he thrusts out his phone, waving it in Hadrian’s face.

 

“I only need four more candies to evolve my Magikarp into a Gyardos, and for the life of me I can’t find them anywhere.”

 

He blinks.

 

“ _Are you fucking kidding me_?” But this is rhetorical; everything in Death’s expression is deadly serious.

 

“Hadrian, this has been a long and trying endeavor.” Death retorts, flatly. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to gather four-hundred of these stupid candies?”

 

“Why don’t you just cheat like everyone else?” He returns, confused and incredulous.

 

“What am I, a peasant?” Death snorts in a most undignified manner. “Cheating is beneath me.”

 

“But wandering around planet Earth in search of fake monsters isn’t?” He points out, genuinely perplexed.

 

“I intend to get this stupid water dragon thing, and then take over all of the gyms in this city, and rule them all in a most nefarious manner.” Death decrees, imperiously. He slams his smoothie down with great finality, and then hops out of his chair, blonde pigtails swinging behind him. “You can either join me, or stand with the masses in defeat and agony.”

 

He pivots around smartly, hands on his hips. “Well? Are you coming?”

 

Hadrian is still in a floundering state of disbelief, not quite over the absurdity of it all.

 

Then he thinks about all the gyms he and Death could conquer if they work together. It’ll be like the Crusades all over again, without all the scurvy and the Christians.

 

“Alright, fine.” He snaps. “But you’re trading me your Nidoqueen in return, do you hear?”

 

//

 

Hadrian returns to Hell feeling oddly triumphant, despite the fact he did literally nothing useful at all and spent the entirety of the day playing Pokemon Go. He stops by the office to grab some things before heading back to earth to con some Korean barbeque.

 

“Oh, Hadrian. What are you doing here?”

 

Once upon a time, Duke Barbatos was a fearsome demon Prince with thirty legions beneath him. He often took the form of a towering white suit of armor, with a lance in his left hand. He could speak the past and future, and lead men to hidden treasure. These days he wears reading glasses and sells a lot of insurance.

 

His brother and fellow Prince spares Hadrian a nonplussed look as the boy pops his head into his office. His hair is probably a riot, and he’s spent so long walking around his feet are starting to hurt, but he doesn’t think either of those are deserving of that look.

 

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? I live here.” Hadrian returns lazily.

 

Barbatos puts down his files, pushing away from his desk to ferret through a file cabinet shoved up haphazardly against the wall. There are at least a dozen of them, some taller than others, all equally full. “I thought you had already left.”

 

Hadrian frowns. “Left for where?”

 

“To meet your client.”

 

“I have a client?” He gasps.

 

“You didn’t know?” Barbatos returns, distractedly, as he wrenches out a manila folder and splits the spine open.

 

“ _No_ ,” Hadrian says, with feeling. “I had no idea. Why is it every time I need to get somewhere I get waylaid by jackassery?”

 

Barbatos makes a half-hearted noise of commiseration, flicking through a bunch of stapled files. “Waylaid?” He asks, sounding only vaguely interested.

 

“Yeah. Death, as usual, was being a total pain in my ass. He dragged me all across the city to play this stupid game and wasted so much of my goddamn--

 

Hadrian’s eyes widen, as suddenly everything makes sense. “ _That scum sucking road whore!”_ He cries loudly. “He did it on purpose!”

 

“Huh?” Barbatos finally looks up, but at that point Hadrian is tearing out of the office.

 

_//_

 

_// new anime groove // android52 //_

 

_//_

 

So Death thinks he’s gonna pull a fast one on him, is he?

 

Hadrian snorts derisively. Not a chance. Death might think he’s the slickest cat on the block but at the end of the day he’s still just an evil and better-looking version of Santa Claus, except his helpers are dementors and bone minions instead of oddly color-coordinated elves and north pole residents. But he’s still lazy, old, married, and has a lot of other people doing his job for him. Except for when it’s time for him to shove himself down people’s chimneys and reap their souls; he always saves the fun part for himself.

 

At any rate, Death’s random appearance makes sense now. Death often finds ways to fuck with him, but he rarely goes out of his way to troll without a good reason. He also doesn’t care _that_ much about Pokemon Go.

 

Hadrian isn’t entirely sure why Death went out of his way to make sure he missed his appointment, but whatever the reason, it was important enough to actually make that lazy old man get off his ass and distract him in person.

 

Suffice to say, it’s at least worth a follow up visit in person.

 

But what Hadrian finds is decidedly not worth all this effort.

 

First, he realizes with no small amount of horror that he appears to have been pulled almost a century into the past. Good god, what is that person wearing? That hat is _heinous_. He forgot how tragic the fashions of the past tend to be after a couple decades. Except for the Bubble Era. The Bubble Era was a classic.

 

It’s not the first time he’s time traveled for a job, but he does wonder why it happened this time. He would ask the old man, but Lucifer has been pretty pissed at him lately because he keeps falling asleep at the quarterly business development meetings. In his defense, those chairs are comfortable, and the coffee is shit.

 

Hadrian finds his client easily enough, in the library of a vast and vaguely familiar castle.

 

The demon prince settles himself on top of a tall bookshelf, sprawling out comfortably as he takes a moment to observe his new client.

 

He’s hot as fuck, but otherwise looks boring.

 

Usually people who summon him are so evil they look disfigured, or are so desperate they look crazy. He doesn’t look like either. If anything, he looks like a normal school boy. Hadrian contemplates him further. Well, he looks like a normal school boy, in that unassuming, upstanding and sweet class president with a secret asian rope fetish kind of way. That pleasant face looks like it could be hiding some really kinky shit. He has long, nimble fingers that grip the tip of his quill as he scrawls notes down onto a piece of parchment. Hadrian spares a moment to be incredulous; the forties might seem like the stone ages, but he’s fairly sure they’ve invented normal paper and fountain pens by this point. He looks around. And lightbulbs. And air conditioners. He turns back down at the boy, before taking stock of his uniform. Ah. Hogwarts. No wonder this castle looked familiar. He must be a wizard. Suddenly the unnecessarily flamboyant and inefficient writing utensil makes sense.

 

Magic aside, the young man appears to be tragically uninteresting. And here Hadrian had been half hoping for someone with a revenge vendetta and an inexplicable love of Death Note.

 

Hadrian watches for a few more moments, listening to the soft scritch of the top of his quill as it dances across his parchment. At the very least, he has very pretty penmanship.

 

“You’re a really boring person, aren’t you?” Hadrian says, bluntly.

 

The boy bolts upright, eyes growing wide. His chair almost clatters to the ground as he stumbles out of it, but he catches it just in time. He snaps his head around, gaze narrowing as he surveys the quiet library around him, searching for the owner of the voice.

 

“Up here,” he calls lazily.

 

Tom Marvolo Riddle cranes his head up, stunned into silence as he finds a beautiful boy lounging on the top of the bookshelf like a satiated jungle cat. He has perfect, soft features that lend an alien, almost androgynous look to his face. He looks foreign and yet familiar; too perfect to be human. Yet his expression is wholly human, mischievous and playful with a roguish grin showing off a row of perfect, dangerous teeth. His eyes are bright and endless. Enchanting. Tom does not think it’s any stretch of the imagination to assume the deadly promise glinting in those eyes is legitimate.

 

For a long moment, he simply stares up at the boy, mouth thinned into a firm line of consideration.

 

“You’re him, of course.” It’s not much of a question, or even a statement. It’s an observation of incredulity, really. He hadn’t expected it to work. “Prince Hadrian.”

 

“Who exactly did you think would come when you summon a Demon Prince -- Yeezus?” He snorts.

 

“What?”

 

“Nevermind.” The boy leaps off the top of the shelf, elegantly sailing through the air to land smack in front of him on the table. He crouches directly before him, perched on his stack of books with an inhuman grace, staring down his nose at him with those beguiling eyes. “Yes, I am him. Prince Hadrian -- seventy-third Prince of Hell, the Prince of Calamity and Chaos, the patron saint of necromancy, death and immortality.”

 

Hadrian pauses. “Can Demons be Saints?” He wonders aloud, before shaking his head. “Well, whatever. The point still stands. State your piece, human, and depending on my mood I might actually grant your wish.”

 

Tom finds himself at a loss for words.

 

“You can’t be a Demon Prince.” He chokes out, after a long beat of horrified silence.

 

“Why not?” Hadrian frowns. “Because I’m not a firebreathing half-wolf half-lion carrying a trumpet? Because I’m not a three-headed serpent? Because I’m not a warrior king dressed in the skins of my enemies? Because I’m wearing a pair of Yeezy’s?”

 

“Because - because...” Tom sputters, ineffectual. “You just can’t.”

 

Hadrian stares at him, unamused.

 

Then he straightens up, sighing as he shrugs his shoulders. “Well, believe what you want.” He replies, balancing on Tom’s Transfiguration Encyclopedia. “Your loss.”

 

That’s enough to stir the boy out of his shock.

 

“Wait, don’t leave!” The human is quick to say.

 

This gives the demon pause.

 

He clears his throat, schooling his features back into a pleasant neutrality as he returns to his seat. “I apologize,” he amends, suavely. “I didn’t mean to offend, Prince Hadrian.”

 

The boy’s glowing eyes blink a few times, before his shoulders seem to settle like ruffled feathers. He doesn’t move to step off the books, or the table, simply staring down at Tom seated before him.

 

Then he scoffs. “You’re a real smooth talker, aren’t you?”

 

Tom says nothing. His attempt at innocence would have been rather deceiving, if Hadrian wasn’t convinced this guy was hiding an intense passion for bondage.

 

“Well, alright then.” The demon prince continues. “You summoned me for a reason. What is it?”

 

This is not how he thought his summoning of a feared demon Prince of Hell would go at all.

 

First of all, he performed the ritual a fortnight ago. He had expected the Prince to show up _then_ , not randomly a week later in the middle of his free period. He knew the Princes took many shapes and forms, but still this boy’s appearance surprised him. Perhaps he had vastly underestimated the Ars Goetia’s definition of ‘beautiful’, because he knew academically that Prince Hadrian was said to appear as a beautiful young boy, but he hadn’t expected someone _so_ beautiful, or so young, for that matter.

 

He expected someone intimidating; a creature with a ferocious voice and stature, or at the very least a terrifying magical aura. As of now, he couldn’t feel a thing from the boy in front of him, although that meant very little. He could very well be masking his aura, as to not draw attention.  And if not that then maybe even an alluring seductress of some sort, a demon of such beauty that all of mankind was compelled to fall under their thrall. Academically Hadrian was stunning, and in possession of such a striking appearance that he could probably seduce anyone he wanted - if one happened to overlook the personality, clothing, and general demeanor, that is.

 

“I did,” he agrees with a nod, once he’s composed himself again. “I wanted your expertise with a certain ritual…”

 

Hadrian raises a brow. “Yes?”

 

Tom’s eyes slide down the rows of shelves, looking for other students. He sends a quick charm to echo through the library; there are two students at the desks by the entrance, and the librarian is behind her desk. He flicks his wand again to cast a muffling charm around the whole area, before he turns back to Hadrian. The demon looks amused, making Tom think that he might have already cast something similar around them before even appearing in the first place. All the same, better to play it safe.

 

“The horcrux ritual.” He reveals. “I want to know everything about it; I want you to show me how to perform it; and I want you to be there when I use it.”

 

At first, Hadrian does not have a response.

 

Then he doubles over in laughter. Tom rears back, surprised. The demon prince crumples in on himself, shoulders shaking as he dry heaves, slapping his knee.

 

Tom’s surprise quickly turns into annoyance at the demon’s response. If this was anyone else but a Demon Prince of Hell, he would have cursed them for their disrespect. As it is, he can’t do much but scowl crossly at the laughing demon.

 

“God, if that’s not the best thing I’ve heard all day.” Hadrian straightens up, wiping at his eyes. The pile of books sways slightly with the abrupt movement, but otherwise does not move.

 

“Are you done?” Tom asks, unamused.

 

“Yes, yes.” Hadrian’s expression clears into something thoughtful, his lips curling into a smirk. “I see someone’s told you how to make deals with demons.” He remarks, sounding slightly impressed. Normally humans asked for fickle things, or were too vague with their wishes, leaving plenty of opportunity for demons to exploit them. Someone must have told the boy to be as succinct and direct as possible.

 

Tom finds a smirk of his own growing on his face. “I was not about to summon a demon without adequate preparation beforehand.”

 

The demon prince makes a noise of acknowledgment. He tilts his head, dark curls sliding across his forehead as his bright eyes look down upon Tom with a curious air. “And what are you prepared to sacrifice in return?”

 

The human looks up at him with a flash of surprise.

 

“Sacrifice?” He repeats. “A human life. Is that not the price for a horcrux?”

 

Hadrian laughs. “For the horcrux, yes. But I’m referring to myself.” He grins, before repeating with a drawl; “I’ll ask again, what are you prepared to sacrifice to _me_?”

 

“But the pomegranate and moon stone--”

 

“Are offerings to summon me in the first place, not sacrifices.” Hadrian interrupted easily.

 

The human’s eyes grow wide once more, as he purses his lips. “The book said nothing about a sacrifice.” He murmurs.

 

“You probably have an outdated copy.” Hadrian shrugs.

 

_Outdated_? Tom thinks, blindsided. It’s the Ars Goetia, it’s not as if it has a publisher’s stamp on it--it’s one of the darkest books in history! It’s banned by the Ministry! Just owning it is a one way ticket to Azkaban!

 

“I thought you said you were _adequately_ prepared.” He adds with a cruel laugh.

 

Tom scowls fiercely.

 

He had spent this past Yule holiday researching everything he could about Demon summoning while he had the opportunity to get his hands on the Malfoy library. Abraxas was more than accommodating, even showing Tom to a few of his ancestor’s portraits that could tell first hand accounts. They all said that the sacrifices involved varied from prince to prince, and depended heavily on the difficulty of the task in question.

 

Tom had assumed a human life would be enough. It was the highest sacrifice you could make to a Demon Prince. Aside from your own soul, that is.

 

He was not prepared to offer up anything else; but he was also not prepared to walk away from this meeting empty-handed. He needed the demon’s help, as loathe he was to admit it.

 

The information on Horcruxes was painfully small, and all of it was littered with blessings and sacrifices to Prince Hadrian.

 

Prince Hadrian, the seventy-third demon prince. He is the cause of death and chaos, and can bring about calamity. He is a trickster and is known to be sly and manipulative, and a dangerous demon to make deals with. He makes men cunning in all arts, but especially rhetoric. He teaches Alchemy and Astronomy, and is the master of soul magic. He can make men immortal, for a price.

 

Tom had spent months debating on which Prince to summon; there were many to choose from, many princes that were said to help with death, with principles of the soul, each with their own talents and skills. But Prince Hadrian was the master. And he needed a master’s help. His knowledge was necessary in order to create a successful horcrux. If anything, all the accounts he could find specified that without Hadrian, it would be disastrous.

 

Tom grits his teeth.

 

He needs him, yes. But Hadrian is a trickster. He is deceitful, and he is known to twist deals in his favor. Tom could not afford to give this demon even an inch. He knew he was walking a narrow line with this one, knew that he was playing with fire. But he had no other choice.

 

He had known better than to ask Hadrian for true immortality. Neither the _Ars Goetia_ nor the _Lesser Key of Solomon_ defined what, exactly, the price for immortality was, but Tom was not foolish enough to think it was a price he could pay. But horcruxes were the perfect loophole. He was not really asking for immortality, he was asking for the knowledge to split his soul and house it within an object. Immortality was simply a byproduct of that.

 

“What price would you ask me?” He asks, stoic as he peered up at the demon with an impassive face, refusing to give away his inner turmoil.

 

Hadrian rears back a bit, looking surprised.

 

He taps his chin. “Hmm… hm… what would I ask of you?” He repeats, thoughtfully. “What would I ask, in return for the knowledge of horcrux creation? The mastery of soul magics is not cheap, you know.”

 

“I had assumed so, yes.” Tom replies, bitingly through his clenched jaw.

 

“You know what? I don’t really know.” Hadrian decides, cheerfully, by not deciding anything at all.

 

Tom’s mouth opens in shock, as Hadrian laughs.

 

“How about I make you a deal instead, Tom Marvolo Riddle.” He continues, grinning winsomely. “I fulfill your tasks, and in return, let’s just say I’ll come up with something at a later date.”

 

“How stupid do you think I am?” Tom accuses, affronted.

 

Hadrian laughs again; it sounds like sweet chimes in springtime, and haunting church bells before dusk. “Well, I had to make sure.” He winks. “I can’t give such a discount to someone stupid enough to fall for that.”

 

Tom narrows his eyes, scrutinizing the demon carefully. “What is your real offer, then?”

 

“There is no offer.” Hadrian replies.

 

Tom’s features darken considerably, as his expression morphs into anger. “ _What_ \--

 

“I’ll do it without a sacrifice.” Hadrian finishes, causing all of Tom’s anger to evaporate as quickly as it had come.

 

“You…” His mouth opens, then closes. He hesitates, blinking rapidly. His brows furrow with consideration. “No.” Tom says. “No. This is a trick.”

 

“How is it a trick if I haven’t made you agree to anything?”

 

“And how am I supposed to believe you’ll stick to your word, without a contract?” Tom points out, voice rising with hysteria. “Without a binding contract, there’s nothing keeping you to uphold your end of the deal.”

 

“You want a contract? Okay. I, Prince Hadrian, seventy-third Demon Prince of Hell, swear to teach Tom Marvolo Riddle the creation, implementation, and execution of horcruxes.”

 

Tom sputters inelegantly. “You--what? That can’t be it.” He leaps up out of his chair, eyes wide. “I didn’t feel anything.”

 

“Why would you feel anything if you aren’t bound to anything?” Hadrian points out, nonplussed.

 

“It can’t be that easy.” Tom retorts, two angry splotches of color rising on his cheeks. “You didn’t even ask for anything in return!”

 

“You don’t have to believe it.” Hadrian rolls his eyes. He digs into his pockets, before unearthing a white breath mint still in its wrapper. He tosses it Tom, who is so startled he almost doesn’t catch it. “Use this to summon me whenever you’re ready to learn.”

 

“You’re summoned by a breath mint?” Tom asks, perplexed.

 

“It’s all I have on me right now.” Hadrian shrugs. “Look, does it matter? I’m granting you your wish.”

 

“I still don’t believe that.” Tom retorts. “It can’t be that easy. You have to be getting something out of this.”

 

“Of course I am.” Hadrian returns. “Why would I ever make a deal that doesn’t benefit me?”

 

Tom frowns. “But then how--

 

“But who says you have to be the one to pay for it?”

 

The human boy stares at him, frown deepening as he stuffs the mint into his robes’ pocket. “Someone paid for me?” He asks, quietly, after a moment passes.

 

“That’s one way of putting it.” Hadrian hedges with a quicksilver smirk. “Anyway, use that to call me when you need me. Try not to die until then!”

 

Hadrian hops off the table -- the movement reveals just how short the demon prince really is, stunning Tom even further. He spares him a lazy, two-fingered salute, and then dissolves into a fine black mist that drifts off in the still air. Tom watches with disbelief as the dark dust disappears with a soft hiss, leaving nothing behind. He would almost believe he made the whole thing up, if he didn’t still have a foreign mint in his pocket.

 

_//_

 

_//_   _star struck // thoughts_ _//_

 

_//_

 

Hadrian returns and laughs himself sick. Then he mentally congratulates himself.

 

No wonder Death tried to distract him.

 

Tom Marvolo Riddle was going to be immortal whether he wanted to or not; Hadrian would be damned if he let Death win this round.

 

Death was going to be fucking furious when he finds out he’s been thwarted.

 

Hadrian snickers under his breath, finding himself in a fantastic mood. There’s nothing that cheers him up more than cheating Death.

 

It had been a long, long time since he had granted someone immortality. The last time he’d done so was through the Philospher’s Stone, but that, once again, was through proxy. Technically the Philospher’s Stone could do a lot of other things besides grant immortality, like turn water into wine, lead into gold, heal all poisons; not to mention it works fabulously as a stain remover.

 

Come to think of it, he couldn’t think of an actual time he’d granted someone real immortality. Despite it being perfectly within his abilities, and the numerous people who had summoned him over the years in hopes of gaining it, he’d never really wanted to. Immortality seemed wasted on humans, and maybe there was even a small part of him that didn’t want to wish this sort of fate onto anyone. Immortality was a waste, really.

 

The demon prince finds himself wandering about the main office with a beaming smile and ineffably good mood. Not even the more irritable of his demon prince brothers can bring him down. He eventually finds himself returning to Duke Barbatos’ office, which seems to have come into an inheritance of at least eight more tons of paperwork since Hadrian had last seen it. The Duke himself is swimming amidst the sea of paper, impeccable suit jacket tossed somewhere in the rubble, tie loose at his neck. Prince Vassago is sprawled in one of the office chairs, one shiny patent leather shoe resting on a stack of paperwork as he uses magic to sign his name through sheet after sheet, not even bothering to look up from his latest issue of _Wired_.

 

“For the last time, the printer is the _laser_ jet, not the _desk_ jet.” Barbatos roars, without looking up. “And it only prints in --

 

“Hadrian.” He cuts himself off, once he finally looks up. “My apologies. I thought you were my intern. Are you busy right now?”

 

They have interns? He’s never good with being put on the spot like this. Hadrian squints as he debates the merits of both answers. “... No?”

 

Barbatos shoves a small city’s worth of paper stacks at him before he can even think about turning around and running. “Good. Sign these, would you? The fiscal year ends today so I need to use up all my budget before it disappears.”

 

Even architecturally sound paper skyscrapers aren’t quite enough to derail Hadrian’s good mood. He takes a page out of Vassago’s book - not literally - and magically duplicates his signature on every page. He supposes if he wasn’t the seventy-third, and youngest, of all the Princes he’d probably be just as stuck behind an office desk as Barbatos, but fortunately at around his fiftieth son Lucifer just stopped giving a fuck about their life choices. Quite frankly, he’s satisfied with Hadrian as long as he isn’t causing irreparable mass destruction, and these days he never has much cause for it.

 

They’re about halfway through the room when Barbatos finally appears to remember that he’s even there at all. “Oh, Hadrian.” He remarks, when he finally surfaces himself once more. “What are you still doing here?”

 

Hadrian turns an uncharitable look his way. “You asked me to be here.”

 

“Did I?” Barbatos scratches his chin. “Ah. Well, I thought you had a job. Whatever happened to that?”

 

“I do have a job.” At the very thought, Hadrian brightens again. “It’s going great.”

 

“Is it? I’m happy for you.” Although nothing in his tone or expression would ever hint at that.

 

“You still take human offerings?” Vassago interrupts in a bored drawl.

 

“Why not?” Hadrian shrugs.

 

“What sort of value do humans have to offer you?”

 

“Their souls.” Hadrian returns, deadpan. “And their porn.”

 

Vassago blinks. “Fair enough.”

 

“I hope you aren’t taking either of those.” Barbatos cuts in disapprovingly, as he frowns down at a stack of folders.

 

“Actually, I’m not taking anything.” Hadrian reveals cheerfully.

 

Both his fellow demons stare at him incredulously.

 

“Seriously?”

 

“You’re doing something pro bono?”

 

From Vassago and Barbatos respectively.

 

“Charity is good once in awhile!” Hadrian retorts defensively. “You know, not everything in life has to be about further capitalist gains.”

 

The unimpressed looks say all that is needed.

 

“Okay, fine.” Hadrian rolls his eyes dramatically. “It’s not really charity. I’m settling a score with Death. He tried to distract me into forgetting about this client, because you know how he is with immortality.”

 

A look of understanding crossed Barbatos’ face, and he made a noise of acknowledgment as he returned to shuffling through his folders. “I see.” He intones. “Well, I suppose that’s to be expected. Nothing displeases Death more than a human who can't die.”

 

“He should just get over it.” The youngest demon prince snorts. “Not the first time, won’t be the last and all that.”

 

He doesn’t mention the horcruxes. Barbatos will probably just reprimand him for teaching that to humans. To be fair, Tom practically taught most of it himself, but without Hadrian’s blessing his soul would eventually have just deteriorated until he grew insane from it all. At any rate, Horcruxes were bad because they screwed a lot of people over, Death included. Stealing souls was the worst offense one could make. Anyone who dared to practice such a forbidden art would spend the rest of eternity in the deepest, most torturous pits of Hell. Anyone besides the Demon Princes, of course. Although even they rarely committed the act, since it was the highest form of payment, and humans were so cheap these days.

 

And not only did a horcrux steal a soul away from Death -- because it kept the human who made a horcrux alive -- the act of making horcruxes also stole souls from Death because a horcrux required the death of someone else and the use of their soul as energy to fuel the ritual. So in essence, depending on how many horcruxes a human made they could be cheating Death out of _a lot_ of souls.

 

No one would be happy Hadrian taught a human how to make horcruxes, _again_. His father especially. So Hadrian casually refrained from mentioning it.

 

Vassago shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you’re doing it for free, even if it’s to spite Death. What’s so special about this human?”

 

“Ah, well,” Hadrian scratches his cheek. “His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. Um, he’s really good-looking, if that counts. I guess there really isn’t anything all that special about him, but I’ve given up on Dark Souls 3 and I just got banned on Twitter -- ”

 

Vassago spares him a level look. “ _Again_?”

 

“And I really don’t have anything better to do than help him out.” Hadrian finishes, grinning. “And if it has the added bonus of screwing over Death, then why not?”

 

“What do you mean, you don’t know what he wants you to do?” Barbatos interrupts. “You signed a contract, didn’t?”

 

“Well, not really.” He hedges.

 

“Hadrian,” Barbatos says, sounding pained. “ _Why.”_

 

Vassago palms his face. Barbatos looks indignant enough for the both of them. “What possessed you do to something so stupid? You made a deal with a human without a contract? How do you expect to receive payment without a binding contract?”

 

“Ah, well, you see… I don't.” Hadrian replies cheerfully. “Expect to receive payment, that is. His continued existence is payment enough, as far as I'm concerned.”

 

Death is going to _lose his shit_ , and you can't put a price on that.

 

But Vassago and Barbatos take the news an entirely different way. To be fair, there is a precedent. The last time Hadrian made a contract with a human with no strings attached it had all been an elaborate and shameless ploy to sleep with the guy.

 

“Is he really that hot?”

 

“He was _very_ good looking.” Hadrian replies, shameless and wholly unrepentant.

 

If anything, Vassago looks more alarmed.

 

“Hadrian, _no_. Not again. Don't you remember the last time?”

 

“Yeah Hadrian, is that supposed to be reassuring?” Barbatos snorts. “I dare say the only thing that rivals your terrible taste in clothes is your terrible taste in men.”

 

“...I have _great_ taste in clothes.” Hadrian retorts after a beat. He would argue the second, but true shit. He really does have awful taste in men.

 

“You’re missing the point here.”

 

“You’re worrying over nothing!” Hadrian waves them off. On that note, he hops out of his armchair, stretching his arms over his head as he makes for the door. “Look man, let me do me. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?”

 

In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea to tempt Fate like that. If there was ever a being to exist that hated Hadrian more than Death, it was probably Fate.

 

//

 

Tom whirls around, shocked as he hears a choked cry, and the thud of something heavy hitting the floor.

 

His eyes widen when he sees the unmoving form of a young Ravenclaw girl, lifeless eyes peering up at him from beneath the fringe of her hair. Her glasses clatter to the ground beside her, as her head lolls to the side for the final time.

 

Shit. She was dead. Very, very dead.

 

A soft hiss and the sound of scales sliding against concrete remind him of what’s behind him.

 

He holds the Basilisk back with one hand, attention still focused on the dead girl. “ _Return to the chamber_.” He hisses.

 

“ _But my master, you promised me mudbloods to eat_ \--

 

“ _You’ll have your snack later_ .” Tom cuts it off, impatiently. “ _Now, return to the chamber and wait for me there_.”

 

The Basilisk makes an unhappy hiss, before it slithers back down the tunnel.

 

Tom closes the entrance, making sure it’s correctly sealed before returning his attention to the girl.

 

“Fuck,” he says. He hadn’t meant to kill her. He hadn’t even realized anyone was in here.

 

And then it occurs to him that there is a dead girl on the floor of the bathroom, and he has no idea what to do about it.

 

He curses again, his breath uneven with the realization that he _actually_ killed someone. He’d been planning to, of course, but planning it in theory and executing it in reality were two entirely separate things. Not to mention, it had more or less been an accident.

 

He ran a wary hand through his hair. What a waste, though. Her death could have meant something, if only he had planned it better.

 

It occurs to him that it could still mean something. He digs into his robe pocket, unearthing a wrapped mint.

 

He holds it out in front of him, taking a deep breath. “Come to me, Prince Hadrian,” he commands.

 

For a long moment, he wonders if the command didn’t work. When it’s been at least a minute with no change, he wonders if Hadrian was going to be a week late again.

 

“Well, that was fast.” A light voice remarks from behind him.

 

His shoulders drop with relief, as he turns around to see the familiar form of Prince Hadrian comfortably seated upon the rim of the sink behind him.

 

“It wasn’t entirely intentional.” He admits. “But all the same she is dead, so I may as well make use of her.”

 

“How very pragmatic of you.” Hadrian smiles slyly. “Very well. Do you have the object you intend to house your soul in?”

 

Tom frowns for a moment, before digging into his pockets again. This time he unearths a small leather bound journal. He had actually intended to turn it into a horcrux at some point, so it’s a good thing he’d been carrying it around lately.

 

Hadrian nods, before hopping off the sink. He walks closer to Tom, coming to stand right in front of him.

 

Tom looks down at him apprehensively. Hadrian observes him just as closely.

 

And then, out of nowhere, he kisses him.

 

Tom gives a muffled cry, wrenching his mouth away from the demon’s. He wipes his lips on his sleeve. “What are you--

 

His protests die off when he sees a tiny ball of light hovering right in front of Hadrian’s parted lips. Hadrian’s eyes lower as he looks down at it, the haunting green obscured by thick lashes. He draws a finger up to his lips, and the little ball balances on the tip of his index finger when he pulls it away.

 

“For future reference, you need to kill your victims with the killing curse.” The demon murmurs, as he lowers his hand between them, palm up. They both watch the glowing blue orb as it floats above his palm. “Otherwise, your soul won’t actually splinter off.”

 

His eyes flicker up to Tom. “I did it for you this time, but in general the process of splitting your soul is quite painful. Don’t let that surprise you.”

 

Tom nods, once. His gaze wanders back to the form slumped on the ground beside them. “How long do I have to complete the ritual, once I’ve made the kill?”

 

Hadrian directs his gaze towards the girl as well, tilting his head appraisingly. He waves his other hand over the body, and suddenly decrepit, black monsters appear around it. Tom rears back; they are small and almost goblin-like, with beady yellow eyes, and appear to be covered in a film of smoke.

 

“Death’s minions.” Hadrian explains, rolling his eyes. “He’s a lazy bastard, so he normally sends his minions out to collect souls for him. It normally takes them about an hour to harvest the soul from the body.”

 

Tom frowns. “What spell did you use to turn them visible?”

 

“They were always visible to me.” The demon prince replies, amused. “But I used a bit of demon magic so you could see them as well.”

 

He frowns further. “How will I see them otherwise?”

 

“Well, you could always make another deal with me for a pair of eyes that let you see all sorts of things.” Hadrian winks, laughing lightly as he sees Tom’s expression turn into a grimace. “But something tells me you don’t want to pay that price. As a more economic alternative, you can use an adder stone.”

 

It occurs to Hadrian that he’s being exceptionally nice to this human, and he’s not entirely sure why. He could have made this boy’s life a great deal more difficult, but for some reason he’s oddly uneager to do so. At this point, it’s going a bit beyond trolling Death.

 

It’s disconcerting. He actually wants to help this human. He has no idea why he decides to help this young man; why he is going out of his way to be helpful. Yeah, he was attractive at all, but he wasn’t that hot. There was really no reason for Hadrian to be so charitable. Despite what he had told Vassago and Barbatos earlier, he never did anything for charity. He was a demon, for god’s sake. When were they ever anything but vain, narcissistic, self-serving assholes?

 

“But on the off chance Death does come to collect a soul personally, turn around and walk away.” He finishes, turning to Tom with a serious, almost ominous expression.

 

Tom feels a thrill of foreboding shiver up his spine. He swallows thickly. “And why would I do that?”

 

“It’s better if you don’t confront him; don’t give him any more reason to hate you. Immortality or no, cheating Death is not an easy thing. And once he finds out you’ve bested him, he’s going to be pissed as all hell.”

 

Tom blanches.

 

“Not to mention, every time you make a horcrux you’re using the soul of your victim as energy for the ritual. So not only will he lose your soul, but theirs as well.” Hadrian adds, darkly. “By doing this, you’re making an enemy out of Death. Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

 

The human takes a deep breath, the brief fear in his eyes settling into determination. “I am.” He answers, crisply.

 

“Good, because I wouldn't have let you back out anyway.” Hadrian retorts with a smirk and a gleam in his eye. He draws his demon sword. His flaming black demon sword. Tom casually doesn't stare directly at it, in fear it might just suck his soul by mere existence. With a couple of quick swishes of his blade, he banishes the minions back to Hell. “Can you draw the ritual circle?”

 

“Yes.” Tom replies, crouching down as he summons a pot of ink and a brush.

 

“The surface of the ritual doesn’t actually matter,” Hadrian reveals helpfully, as he watches Tom go about his work. “You can actually draw the circle on a piece of paper, and it’ll work the same.” _Or print it off the internet,_ he thinks with amusement. But that’s probably not going to be useful information to Tom in this day and age.

 

“So you can prepare the ritual circle beforehand?” Tom asks, as he paints a long seal across the top of the circle.

 

“You can actually perform the whole ritual beforehand.” Hadrian returns, stepping out of the way as he scrawls runes down where Hadrian’s feet would have been. “All the preparations for the horcrux can be done before you actually make the kill. That way, you already have the object ready, and it will automatically use the victim’s soul as energy to complete the ritual and consume the splintered off fragment of your own soul.”

 

“That would certainly make the process a lot smoother.” Tom notes, still focused on his runes.

 

“Yeah, well, that’s why you summoned me, isn’t it?” Hadrian smirks. “To show you how to do it, and give you some helpful tips?”

 

“I suppose it is, yes.” The human murmurs.

 

He gives his seal one last look, before standing and straightening up. He turns to Hadrian with a dark look. “And now?”

 

Hadrian gestures to his book with one hand, the other still holding aloft the fragment of soul he sucked out. “Now you place the object on top of it.”

 

Once he does that, Hadrian continues; “You do know the incantation, right?”

 

Tom nods, raising his wand into the air.

 

The spell is long and complicated; his voice echoes hauntingly against the flagged stone room. The demon watches him with unblinking eyes, his gaze searing and intense. Tom has to tear his own gaze away, focusing onto the ritual seal painted onto the floor.

 

The soul piece in Hadrian’s hand dives into the book. Likewise, the girl’s soul flies into it as well. His diary glows slightly, shudders once, then twice, before it seems to settle. The glow disperses, leaving nothing but an innocuous leather book and an overwhelming black aura.

 

“That’s it?” Tom blinks.

 

“That’s it.” Hadrian confirms.

 

He scowls. “What was the point in summoning you, if it was that easy?”

 

Hadrian tilts his head to the side, appearing thoughtful. He grins slyly, looking as if he knows something Tom doesn’t.

 

“Well,” he drawls casually. “I guess there isn’t a point. Aside from the fact that without me your soul would slowly crumble apart and take your sanity with it, until you were a mindless shell incapable of dying.”

 

Tom’s eyes widen, first in shock and then in rage. “And you didn’t think it fit to tell me until now?”

 

“What does it matter? We have a deal already, don’t we?” He shrugs, shamelessly. “You’ve got nothing to worry about now.”

 

“Yes, now.” He agrees, waspishly. “But what if I had decided to try it without you?”

 

“That would have been very unfortunate.” Hadrian replies, solemnly. Then he brightens. “Good thing you didn’t, huh?”

 

Tom grits his teeth. “Yes. Good thing.” He replies stiffly, moving to retrieve his new horcrux. “I thank you for the assistance then, Prince Hadrian.”

  


_//_

 

_// heeled shoes // samashi_ _//_

 

_//_

 

Tom should have known better.

 

As it is, he can barely keep the rage off his face.

 

“Class, this is Hadrian Skywalker, he just transferred here yesterday from Durmstrang.” Slughorn introduces the small boy by his side with great aplomb. “He’ll be joining us for the rest of the semester, so please welcome him warmly.”

 

The evil demon smiles beatifically. Tom wants to punch him in his stupid, perfect teeth. “It’s nice to meet you all!” He greets, cheerfully.

 

It appears the class at large has no idea what to make of this absurdly handsome boy. All but Tom, who stares him down with a glare that even Death would cower in front of.

 

Hadrian is ushered into a seat at Tom’s table, and the boy realizes with great consternation that the demon is wearing Slytherin colors. But of course.

 

Abraxas Malfoy immediately leans across the space between their tables, grinning flirtatiously at the new student. “Durmstrang, huh? Kind of odd to transfer in the middle of the school year, isn’t it?”

 

Hadrian smiles pleasantly. “I guess so.” He hedges, demurely. “But I’m happy to attend Hogwarts.”

 

Beside him, Eileen Prince spares the new student a decidedly unimpressed look. “Are you a mudblood?” She asks, bluntly. “I’ve never heard of the name Skywalker.”

 

Hadrian chokes on a bubble of laughter, hiding his amusement behind his hand as he fakes a coughing spell. “Oh, uh, well that’s--” He snickers behind his fist. “You probably wouldn’t have. I’m from Tatooine. So my family’s not from here.”

 

Tom’s eyes near bulge out of his head.

 

No one else seems to notice the fact that Tatooine definitely is not a place that actually exists and Hadrian is making up _total bullshit,_ taking his words at face value. “So are you a mudblood, or not?” She prods, her acerbic voice more acidic than usual.

 

“Oh, definitely not, no.” Hadrian looks amused. “I’m about as pure as it gets.”

 

You’re not even human, Tom wants to point out.

 

“I see.” Eileen leans back, looking satisfied. “Well then, welcome to Slytherin.”

 

Hadrian blinks. “Thanks?”

 

“Tatooine, huh? Never heard of it.” Abraxas cuts in. “What’s that like? Where’d you say it was?”

 

“Well, you know. It’s hot. It’s like a giant desert. Um. It’s near Mongolia. Yeah. A desert near Mongolia. There’s nothing but sand as far as the eye can see. And no water. It never rains.”

 

Abraxas and Eileen listen attentively with wide eyes. How the hell does he even come up with this shit? Tom decides he doesn't actually want to know. Hadrian’s mind is probably a terrifying place, and he is a trickster demon, after all. Making up heinous lies for his own amusement is probably par for the course. All the same Tom narrows his eyes at the boy, but Hadrian casually does not meet his gaze as he continues.

 

“I lived a very humble life with my aunt and uncle. My parents died, you see.” He starts, gravely. “My mother was a Queen, and my father was a - a knight. Of sorts. It’s such a tragic tale…”

 

He can’t even believe this.

 

By the time potions class is over, Hadrian has convinced the entirety of the class that he is an orphaned farm boy of sorts, which makes absolutely no sense, since he had stated earlier that he was a pureblood, and no pureblood would ever grow up on a farm. No one else seems to notice the gaping holes in the boy’s story - first and foremost the fact that Tatooine isn't even a real place - probably too caught up gazing into his luminous green eyes.

 

Tom is in a right foul mood by the time the class is over, not even slightly appeased by his perfect grade on his potion. All he can do is curse that damn demon in his head, over and over again.

 

“Hey! Wait up, Mr. Head Boy!”

 

Tom curses liberally under his breath, stopping abruptly in the middle of the hall. Fortunately there is no one around to see him pinch the bridge of his nose in agitation.

 

He’s not surprised that the demon doesn’t make a sound as he approaches. “You know, one would think you aren’t all that happy to see me.” He accuses childishly.

 

“That’s because I’m not.” Tom hisses, dropping his hand to glare at the demon. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I don’t see what your problem is.” Hadrian sniffs. “You don’t want to die. I’m here to make sure you live forever. Why are you so pissy?”

 

“By posing as a schoolboy?” Tom retorts, ignoring the insult.

 

“It’s easier to keep tabs on you if I’m here.” Hadrian protests.

 

Tom grits his teeth. His hand once more rises to his face, where he presses his fingers into his temples, trying to stave off the inevitable headache. He takes a deep breath, before releasing it. When he opens his eyes, he still looks annoyed, but not approaching the homicidal rage from earlier.

 

“If anyone finds out who you are -

 

“Just who do you think I am?” The demon cuts him off with an undignified look. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive, you know. No one’s going to find out.” He turns a sly look towards Tom. “Don’t worry, no one’s going to find out about our _dirty_ little secret.”

 

He finishes the sentence with a suggestive wink that makes an involuntary flush rise on Tom’s neck. Dammit. He _doesn’t_ want to think about Hadrian doing anything dirty. Or something dirty that they could be doing, together.

 

He shoves the thought aside. “If you put even one toe out of line -

 

“You’ll what? Spank me?” Hadrian gives him a suggestive look.

 

Tom’s mouth snaps shut as his cheeks redden even further; with anger or embarrassment, it’s really hard to say.

 

It only gets worse as Hadrian only continues to laugh.

 

Tom fears he has no one to blame but himself.

 

“I’m just kidding.” He says, with a shit-eating grin that means he totally isn’t. “I promise to behave, okay? Hadrian Skywalker is a model student, you know.”

 

“No, I don’t know, because Hadrian Skywalker _doesn’t exist_.” Tom scowls. “How did you even manage to get yourself here, anyway?”

 

“Mr. Riddle, I feel you are vastly underestimating the extent of my powers.” Hadrian sniffs.

 

//

 

  
  



	2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Hadrian Skywalker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the saga continues. i don't even know wtf i'm doing don't mind me

**_// cheap bad (dance) moves  //_ **

**_//_ **

**_// part one / IF YOU LOVE ME IN GROOVE CITY //_ **

 

Chapter 2

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Hadrian Skywalker

Before Tom knew it, Hadrian had settled into school so effectively it felt as if he’d been there the whole time. He wasn’t alone in that either; the demon had effectively enthralled the entire school. No one but Tom even noticed when Hadrian would casually disappear for days -- sometimes weeks -- on end, before reappearing with a cheery grin and a god awful excuse for his absence. He had no idea how Hadrian was managing to pull this off. Perhaps he really had vastly underestimated the extent of a demon’s powers.

 

But Tom digressed.

 

The school year continued, Tom continued to plot his future post Hogwarts, Hadrian continued to annoy the shit out of him whenever he could get away with it. Surprisingly that wasn’t very often, because it wasn’t often that they had time alone with just the two of them. The downside to Hadrian’s popularity was, well, his popularity. People liked him, yes, but that just meant that people also always wanted to be around him.

 

Everyone appeared to have some kind of opinion on Hadrian - be that adoration or just plain bewilderment - but Tom had yet to make up his mind.

 

He still didn’t quite know what to make of the demon.

 

Sure, he was a trickster. He enjoyed pulling stupid stunts like this, although in Tom’s opinion enrolling in his school and coercing the masses into liking him was taking it a bit too far. But then, what did Tom know of Hadrian, really? Maybe this wasn’t atypical behavior at all; maybe Hadrian did this with everyone he made contracts with. Tom had no way of knowing. He might know more about Hadrian than anyone else here, but in the grand scheme of things that meant very little.

 

He spent a lot of time simply observing the demon, wondering if everything about his personality was truly a ruse, or truly reality. Some days it was hard to say; Tom would feel utterly certain that Hadrian was just having them on, but then later he would quietly wonder if Hadrian was really just a pathological liar, or if he was actually telling the truth. It frustrated him to no end that he had no idea.

 

He knew nothing about the demon, and before long he’d decided that was for the best.

 

What did it matter, anyway?

 

He wasn’t here to be _friends_ with Hadrian, for Merlin’s sake.

 

The demon’s only reason for being here was for Tom’s horcruxes, and since Tom had no intentions of creating another one until this summer, that meant he really had no reason at all. He insisted he was here for Tom’s sake; to keep watch over him and make sure he stayed alive for an indeterminable amount of time, but Tom didn’t know if he believed that. Masquerading as a human boy, going through all this effort to integrate himself into Tom’s life -- it seemed like far too much effort if his only purpose was protecting him from Death. He could have just as easily watched Tom from afar.

 

But if he thought too deeply on Hadrian’s motivations for being here, he’d run himself in circles again.

 

At any rate, Hadrian had no real purpose for being here, and quite frankly, there was no reason for Tom to care _why_ he was here, or why he was helping him. He didn’t need to get to know the demon prince, he just needed the demon to keep his word.

 

However, Tom may have sworn to remain indifferent to Hadrian’s general existence at large, but that was not a sentiment shared by his classmates.

 

His loyal Slytherins had taken Tom’s silent suffering as some kind of kinship with the demon, and had deemed him worthy of their group. And with Tom’s inexplicit approval they had all taken to Hadrian like little farm ducklings imprinting on barn cats. It was awful.

 

He needed to do something about this, but he didn’t know what.

 

Hadrian’s presence - annoyance aside - was only helping him. Quite frankly he should just learn to ignore the demon and let him do what he wanted.

 

He should have known that was an idea doomed to fail.

 

_//_

 

_// don’t call // future girlfriend //_

 

_//_

 

Tom begins to realize he may have a problem when he finds himself irrationally furious one evening and no logical reason as to why.

 

In hindsight there was nothing to be furious about. The day had been predictably boring, but not overtly trying. In fact, he’d actually been in something of a good mood until he returned to the common room with his yearmates to start on their homework.

 

Hadrian, of course, sat in the back with that little screen of his collecting his stupid cats. Every time someone else was watching the metal screen turned into their Ancient Runes textbook, but whenever it was just Tom he could peer over Hadrian’s shoulder and watch Hadrian set out pieces of trash to lure cats into his backyard. He insisted they preferred plastic bags and cardboard boxes, but that did nothing to convince Tom the whole thing wasn’t anything but absolutely pointless.

 

However, Hadrian didn’t get very far in his cat collecting game, because Carrow snuggled up to him with her own Ancient Runes book and started asking him about their homework.

 

To Tom’s unending disbelief, Hadrian didn’t just brush her off and leave for the solitude of their dorm room. Actually, he _smiled_ at her, and agreed. Tom watched it all happen with stilted incredulity. Maybe Hadrian was just in the mood to drive people other than Tom into insanity.

 

But when it happened a second time, and then a third, Tom was beginning to get worried. And annoyed. (But definitely not jealous.)

 

“She likes you, you know.” Tom says one evening as they ready for bed in their dormitory, after having to suffer through Karen Carrow’s presence the entire afternoon long. She very rarely left Hadrian alone, especially if he was in the common room.

 

“Everyone likes me, it’s part of my charm.” Hadrian retorts with aplomb, as he throws his bag down at the foot of his bed. A bed he doesn’t even sleep in, because he always leaves some time in the night for -- for wherever he’s always running off to.

 

“What charm?” Tom scoffs with derision. He sits down on his own bed. “Anyway, if you have no intentions of pursuing her, at the very least could you tell her off? She’s starting to get annoying.”

 

Hadrian shucks off the aggravating sweater he changed into after class; he always transfigures his uniform into something else the moment he can get away with it. This one in particular says ‘RAP MONSTER’ on the back of it, followed by the number 94. It makes no sense to Tom, but then, nothing about Hadrian ever makes much sense to him. All the same he very carefully does not stare in Hadrian’s direction, or the long planes of silky skin revealed with the movement, and fixates his gaze very studiously on the rumpled garment as it flops onto the ground at his feet.

 

“Tell who off?” He asks distractedly, as he magic’s into existence an equally heinous shirt to sleep in. “Wait. Who am I trying to pursue here?”

 

“Karen Carrow.” Since he can’t look at Hadrian right now, he turns his cross and disapproving look to Hadrian’s discarded sweater. It’s not anywhere near as rewarding or effective as turning it on it’s owner.

 

“Carrow?” Hadrian scoffs, fishing for new pants in his dresser. “That girls more _moe_ than Death in Lolita cosplay - I would never, that's insulting.”

 

“I don’t even know what that means,” Tom scowls, closing his eyes and rolling onto his back, because Hadrian has just taken off his pants, and the temptation is too much right now.

 

“She is being super clingy, isn’t she?” Hadrian muses aloud, before shrugging. “Well, whatever. Tomorrow I’ll tell her I have crabs. That should keep her away.”

 

Tom chokes his way into a coughing fit. Only Hadrian would find that okay.

 

Still, a tiny, smug smile finds its way onto Tom’s lips. He pretends it doesn’t feel relieving at all to know Hadrian had no intention of liking Carrow.

 

//

 

Even with Carrow taken care of, Tom had a problem. It was far more severe than any he had encountered before. In general, whenever Tom decided to change a part of himself or his personality, all he had to do was will himself hard enough.

 

Unfortunately, it was becoming apparent he couldn’t just will his feelings away.

 

Every time he tried, they only reared their head at incredibly inopportune times. Like word vomit (and actual vomit) they just came out of nowhere in some kind of uncontrollable, violent fit of unadulterated horror.

 

He rationalized it away a part of his possessive personality. Why wouldn’t he be territorial of Hadrian? Hadrian was his demon, at least for now; Hadrian was here for _him._ If Hadrian was getting distracted then he wasn’t going to do his job properly and that would affect his overall performance, which would therefore affect Tom as well. It was a perfectly logical reaction. In theory.

 

In reality he found himself doing really stupid, petty things.

 

He always made sure to sit between Hadrian and everyone else; if Hadrian was actually still in this dimension he made sure he was either occupied with Tom or with his stupid cat game. He point blank refused to allow Hadrian to join the Quidditch team, not only because he couldn’t even begin to fathom what a disaster that would be, but also because it meant Hadrian would be spending time with other people without him. He found himself getting jealous over the dumbest things - like whenever girls would come up to Hadrian, even when it was innocuous as thanking him for picking up something they accidentally dropped. He _hated_ it whenever people even talked to Hadrian. He used to have no problem with Abraxas - even considered him one of his better followers - but these days he found himself harboring a quiet hatred for the blonde boy, whenever he slung his arm around Hadrian’s shoulders or made the demon laugh with an insipid joke.

 

So yeah, this possessiveness was getting a little out of hand.

 

This became absurdly apparent come Valentine’s day, when the Slytherin table was flooded with a small snowstorm of letters -- the vast majority of them for Hadrian.

 

The demon mimed surprise, but Tom didn’t know who he thought he was fooling. He’d clearly been aiming for this ever since he got here, what with all the flirting and charming grins he tossed about.

 

One in particular caught his eye. Namely because it fell right onto his plate.

 

It was the only one with an actual gift attached, wrapped unremarkably in white parchment. Some of the other letters had candy or chocolate attached, but this was a hefty box full of… something. There was a flopping card attached to the side, unsealed, with something written inside of it.

 

Tom had been weathering Valentine’s day fairly well up until this point.

 

He had of course gotten his fair share of blasphemously pink cards; at least three girls had already cornered him on his way to breakfast to confess their undying devotion to him (not the good kind that made them into minions, but the bad kind that made them into stalkers) and somewhere in the interim he managed to accumulate an incredibly heavy bag full of chocolates. The weight was fine; a featherlight charm solved that easily enough. The chocolate, though? He bet half of them were drugged with love potions, and the other half he wouldn’t want anyway, because he hated chocolate. So ultimately he was carrying a bag of useless crap. He made sure to dump it onto Lestrange the moment he saw the boy.

 

Tom’s own experiences aside, he had even struggled through Hadrian’s gaggle of fangirls, elbowing their way through the crowd to hand the demon chocolates personally. A small spark of jealousy lit up every time this happened -- which was quite frequently -- but Tom refused to act like a jealous tool and simply sniffed and looked the other way. Of course by the time they even made it into the Great Hall that little spark had lit up into a small flame; a flame that was quickly turning into a blazing wildfire as Hadrian started getting owl gifts from all the people too embarrassed to hand them in person.

 

This gift in particular just happened to be the unfortunate scapegoat for all of Tom’s ire.

 

He eyes the bland wrapping paper critically. All of Hadrian’s other gifts were predictably wrapped in vomit-inducing colors. He wonders if the lack of glitter spoke of the gifter’s deeper connection to Hadrian; after all, if Tom had given Hadrian a Valentine’s gift (obviously he had not even contemplated the thought, not at all) he would have gone with nondescript black or white wrapping paper. He would have thought Demon’s would want human hearts or sacrificial goat offerings, but as it turns out he was pretty sure Hadrian would actually prefer flowers or girl’s clothing.

 

Despite his better judgment, his curiosity overwhelms him enough for him to turn the package around to get a better look at the card.

 

He unfolds it, and began to read.

 

_Dear Hadrian,_

 

It begins, in an unfamiliar but elegant script. Tom frowns at it. So it definitely didn’t come from anyone he knew.

 

_We’ve known each other for a long time now. Practically all our lives._

 

The mystery girl writes, making Tom’s eyes widen.

 

Who is this?

 

Who would have known Hadrian that long? Certainly no one in the school; certainly not Karen Carrow.

 

 _I can’t imagine life without you anymore._ _I think about you most of the time._

 

_You make me laugh when I’m sad and I always enjoy spending time with you. Even though you have terrible taste in men, you have great taste in clothes._

 

_Everyday, when I stare into your eyes, I realize I could never love anyone as much as I love you._

 

_\--_

 

_Forever yours,_

_Hadrian_

 

Tom drops the card in outrage.

 

His eye twitches slightly as he took a deep breath.

 

“Is _everything_ a joke to you?” He hisses to the boy across the table from him, unfathomably angry even though he didn’t know why.

 

Actually, he did know why. The amount of _feelings_ he had reading that card was enough to terrify even the most emotional of hormonal teenage girls. Honestly, half his anger was from his disgust over himself. What was wrong with him? Where was this jealousy coming from? Of course it was a fucking joke; everything was a joke to Hadrian. This shouldn’t bother Tom at all. If Hadrian wanted to pull stupid shit like this he was at perfect liberty to do so. But for the second he had genuinely believed it, he had felt a surging tidal wave of anger, helplessness, jealousy and envy -- over the apparently nonexistent person who had wrote the card.

 

“Just about.” Hadrian quips without missing a beat, smiling down at his haul of chocolate with satisfaction.

 

“What’s brought this on, hm?” He flips through a couple handwritten cards, looking far too smug.

 

Hadrian looks up then, as if sensing Tom’s palpable anger.

 

Then his gaze narrows in on the package still on top of Tom’s breakfast.

 

“Oh! Is that mine?” He swipes it off Tom’s plate, ginning. “Perfect timing. I was wondering when it was going to get here.” He enthuses, as he tears open the wrapping -- without even bothering to look at the card.

 

He rips open the box and unearthed… at least two dozen cans of Vienna sausage.

 

Tom closes his eyes slowly.

 

He exhales calmly. “Why do you even _exist_.”

 

“You’d have to ask Satan that.” Hadrian returns cheerfully, and with a wave of his hand the box disappeared, probably to their dorm room, where it would then stink up the whole place forever.

 

“You are the worst,” Tom declares, judgey as fuck. “I hope you know that.”

 

“I couldn’t sleep soundly at night otherwise.” Hadrian agrees, batting his eyelashes.

 

Tom abruptly stands from the Slytherin table at that, a look of pure disgust on his face as he stalks off without another word. He didn’t know whom he was appalled with more; himself or Hadrian. As of now, it appeared to be both.

 

“Get anything good, Hadrian?” He could hear Abraxas ask as he walked away.

 

“Yeah, absolutely!” Was Hadrian’s enthusiastic response, growing father as Tom stormed his way out of the Great Hall. “What about you?”

 

Tom breathes out sharply through his nose.

 

He needed to get away from all of this, before Hadrian drove him well and truly into insanity. If he couldn’t control these stupid feelings, then he was simply going to have to control the source.

 

He was going to cut Hadrian out of his life like the cancerous tumor he was.

 

//

 

Hadrian returns to the dorm some time later, satisfied and about the size of a beached whale, rolling his fat ass self into his bed with a sigh.

 

He is just about to doze off when his phone started to ring in his pocket. He answered without looking.

 

“The answer is no.”

 

“ _So you didn’t like my gift_?” Death asks, sadly.

 

“Oh.” Hadrian blinks his eyes open. “Oh no. It was lovely. Thank you. I would have preferred Spam, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”

 

_“I was going to get you corned beef, but that damned health grocery store didn’t have any.”_

 

Hadrian squinted incredulously. “But they had canned sausages swimming in MSG and trans fat?” Then again, when did Whole Foods ever make sense.

 

 _“I guess. What do I care? The more humans that die from poor dietary habits, the better for me.”_ He boasted. And then, afterwards; _“Did you like the card?”_

 

Hadrian grinned, absolutely brimming with joy.

 

“ _Loved_ the card. I’m getting it framed in solid gold.”

 

//

 

Hadrian was starting to get the vague impression that Tom was avoiding him.

 

He tended to make himself scarce on the best of days, always irritated by Hadrian’s presence. Hadrian adored it. Tom’s very existence made him so happy. He’d never met anyone who got so riled up over things like Tom did - Hadrian didn’t even have to put any effort in.

 

Unfortunately Hadrian couldn’t spend all day nagging Tom into an early grave - he actually has shit to do, surprisingly.

 

Okay, he _had_ shit to do, he was now sitting around playing the Halo 3 campaign with Vassago, eating his Vienna sausages, not doing much of anything, unless one counted headshots.

 

Turns out Death wasn’t just messing with him. He had some debts to collect in some other dimensions, and it was apparently enough for Hadrian’s own father to tap him for the job. Buried underneath his lifetime supply of diabetes-inducing canned food was a dimensional portkey; usually he refused to do Death’s bidding on general principle, but occasionally he was reminded that Lucifer and Death tended to make deals - and while he told Death to fuck off constantly, there was no way he’d ever do that to his father. But roaming about in different dimensions offing people made him feel like Master Chief, blasting around gunning down aliens in alien places, and  playing the Halo campaign reminded him just how much reality fell short of fantasy.

 

And that was a depressing wake up call.

 

Hadrian stares blankly at the screen as he guns down a parade of grunts, shooting their heads until confetti explodes out of them. “When did you unlock the grunt birthday skull?” He asks, idly, as he jumps around a rock to help Vassago out on the other side of the map.

 

“Dunno,” his brother replies, just as distracted, but for entirely different reasons. Vassago is genuinely fixated on the screen - Hadrian is half watching, half secretly having a silent existential crisis and debating his existence.

 

“Why can’t my life be like Master Chief’s?” Hadrian whines, exhaling noisily.

 

“Because you could never be Master Chief.” Vassago retorts. “You’re too short.”

 

Hadrian beats the shit out of a jackal and steals his sniper rifle, moving to snipe off all of Vassago’s enemies.

 

“You kill-stealing bitch!” Vassago swears at him, when he takes out half the platoon before running out of ammo.

 

“You were being slow as fuck.” Hadrian says shamelessly, leaning back in his chair as he directs Master Chief down a jungle path. “Anyway, I didn’t mean like, literally. It’s just - I practically do the same thing as him, epic backstory notwithstanding.”

 

“What do you mean?” Vassago frowns, inching out of the chair beside Hadrian to get closer to the screen, staring without blinking.

 

“You know, go to crazy places and kill people.”

 

“You only kill people when Father tells you to,” Vassago points out. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t even bother because you’re lazy as fuck and killing people in real life is a lot of work.”

 

“Yeah, that’s true,” Hadrian concedes, stretching as they finally make it out of the fighting and into a cutscene. “But that’s kind of my point! Master Chief is like, saving the world from religiously fanatical aliens - what am I doing, exactly? What is my purpose for existence?”

 

Vassago also relaxes in his chair, game controller dangling from his hands as he turns to squint incredulously at Hadrian. “Is playing Halo really giving you an existential crisis?”

 

“Everything gives me an existential crisis these days,” Hadrian sighs dramatically. “Humans have it so easy. They die too fast to really start contemplating the meaning of life. But I’ve had centuries to do it and I can’t think of anything.”

 

“Life is meaningless.” Vassago returns philosophically. “And anyway, if you’re looking for purpose, that’s pretty easy. You were specifically created to serve Hell and more importantly, our Lord and Savior, Satan. If you want to give yourself purpose because you crave some kind of sentimental and useless affirmation, why don’t you just ask him?”

 

Hadrian sits upright as the screen once again returns to the fighting, dragging Master Chief around the map to loot around for better weapons.

 

“That’s not at all what I want.” Hadrian replies, once he’s unearthed a rocket launcher. “I want to find something meaningful for me, I want my existence to mean something to me; I don’t want to exist just because of the old man.”

 

“This is too deep for me right now.” Vassago complains blandly, as he joins Hadrian and picks up his own rocket launcher. They tear out of the building and into open space, wasting no time shooting everything in sight. “Maybe you just need a new job.”

 

“And what, sit behind a desk all day and work here?” Hadrian snorts. “Fuck no.”

 

Vassago scowls. “What’s wrong with working here?” He asks, defensively.

 

It’s then that the door of the conference room they’ve holed themselves up in wrenches open. The 24th Demon Prince of Hell, Marquis Naberius pokes his head in as he passes by. “Hey guys!” He blinks. “Oh, Hadrian. What’s up man? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

 

“It’s a travesty.” Hadrian agrees blandly, not even looking up.

 

“Where are you going?” Vassago at least has the decency to pretend to be interested.

 

“The Ops meeting in ten minutes.” Naberius returns cheerfully. “Speaking of which, I should really get going or I’m going to be late.”

 

He spares a moment to holler as he turns around, before adding rather insistently; “Oh, yeah, and respond to my evite - you’re either coming to the orgy or not!”

 

The door slides shut.

 

Hadrian turns to Vassago. “You see what I fucking mean?”

 

//

 

Despite his best attempts, avoiding Hadrian was impossible.

 

Firstly because they shared the same dorm room and most of the same classes, even though there was a fifty-fifty chance Hadrian would even be in this dimension. Secondly because the damned demon had weasled his way into Tom’s group of ‘friends’, so he couldn’t get them to act as a buffer against him. Tom may have done that to himself though, as he’d all but banned Hadrian from hanging out with anyone but him. And then there was the fact that Hadrian was, you know, a _demon_ , and liked to show up wherever he pleased, wards be damned.

 

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re avoiding me.” The demon startled him one day as he was hiding out in the Chamber of Secrets.

 

Tom scowled.

 

But of course Hadrian could get in here. He could get anywhere, Hell included. Why would the Chamber of Secrets be any different?

 

“What gave you that impression?” Tom returns, blandly, continuing to work at the desk in Slytherin’s library.

 

“The fact that you always run away from me like little moe girls run away from the pedo bear.”

 

“ _What_?” He looks up sharply, brows furrowing.

 

“You’re totally avoiding me.” Hadrian summarizes, waving off his confusion and cutting to the point. “Don’t even front.”

 

“I am _not_ \- “ An angry, splotchy red flush made its way up his neck.

 

He totally was.

 

It was just… it was getting a little hard to ignore, all these weird thoughts about Hadrian.

 

In his defense, he’d never had them before. He considered everyone to be so far beneath him, he couldn’t possibly fathom liking any of them, let alone bedding them. But apparently this only applied to humans, not demons, because Tom had no trouble at all imagining all the many ways he could bed Hadrian. It was awful, actually. He’d started to put silencing charms up when he slept, just in case. He didn’t think he was loud, but he’d never had those kind of dreams at this frequency, either. Once in awhile if was okay, it was even a bit of a welcomed stress reliever sometimes. But there were only so many times he could imagine the many ways to fuck Prince Hadrian, the seventy-third Demon Prince of Hell, before it started to get a little out of control.

 

He hoped to god it was just teenage hormones being stereotypically imbalanced, and it would go away eventually. But Hadrian’s constant presence certainly wasn’t helping any.

 

Ever since that stupid Valentine’s day joke (which now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure it _was_ a joke. Who pulled a prank like that if no one was going to see it? Knowing Hadrian, it was probably just a manifestation of his absurd sense of humor) he’d become far too aware of the demon; how he always smelled like some kind of intoxicating black magic, how his eyes were such a frightening but beautiful shade of green; how his lips curled at the edges whenever he was messing with people just for the fun of it. For Merlin’s sake he was trying to avoid the demon, and yet he was thinking about him constantly. There were times when he felt inexplicably aware of each and every inch separating them, or worse, all the inches _not_ separating them. Those times were the worst, when they were so close he could just reach out and touch the boy, a taboo he never allowed himself to indulge in, but thought about all the damn time. He’d never, not once, touched Hadrian. Not even brushing shoulders in the Great Hall, or a tap on the shoulder to get his attention, as if he thought that one single touch would spur him to lose all control and jump the boy.

 

The only physical contact they'd had was when Hadrian had kissed him to pull out part of his soul.

 

In reality there was nothing arousing about that; dementors did the same damn thing, and that was creepy as shit. But when Hadrian does it suddenly Tom wants his soul sucked out all the time.

 

At any rate that the kiss was bad enough. Any more and he could only imagine how much more pining he'd have to go through.

 

He felt like the uselessly angsty and ineffectual protagonist to a shitty romance novel. Why did he have to have all these feelings? For Hadrian, of all people? There was literally no one worse he could have picked. He didn’t even want to know what Hadrian would do if he found out. Even the very thought was so mortifying he wanted to give up his immortality and turn into a pile of ash.

 

And there was no denying it.

 

He liked Hadrian.

 

And not in the good, feeling-feelings-is-good-for-your-mental-health positive way, but in the, _I want to tie you up so you can never escape me and have my wicked way with you_ kind of way.

 

He realizes he hasn’t actually finished his sentence, and the realization only makes him flush further. “I’m not avoiding you. I’m just busy.” It sounds lame even to his ears.

 

“Likely story.” Hadrian rolls his eyes, making himself comfortable on top of Tom’s desk, sitting cross-legged. His obnoxious shoes are right on top of the notes Tom was reading; Tom is fairly sure Hadrian has never once worn the dress shoes required by Hogwarts. He’s out of his uniform, as per usual, wearing absurdly tight black jeans that don’t seem comfortable at all, and one of his outrageous jumpers with rude and/or upsetting things written on it. This one in particular just says, ‘ _Sad Boys_ ’.

 

It all looks ridiculous. This does not stop Tom from finding him sinfully attractive. It also doesn’t stop him from fantasizing about throwing the stupid boy back flat on top of the desk, and ripping those stupid shoes off, burning the jumper, and peeling down those skin tight pants --

 

“Hey, come on.” Hadrian pouts, drawing Tom’s attention away from his sweater. And other things. “What’s wrong? Are you sick? You’re making a weird face.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

 _Just head over heels in love with you_.

 

And apparently incapable of handling it. He just couldn’t have handled his feelings for the boy gracefully, could he? No, he had to faceplant into that shit.

 

“You do look a bit under the weather.” Hadrian continues to prod. He even tries to reach out and check Tom’s temperature, which is enough to make the boy reel back out of the way before he can get too close.

 

Hadrian actually frowns at him at that. Tom swan dives his way through an explanation. “I’ve just been annoyed with classes --and school, in general. I just want it all to be over with.”

 

“School is such a drag, isn’t it?” The demon grins in agreement. “If I had to spend seven whole years in the place, I’d probably be as miserable as you.”

 

“It’s purgatory.” Tom replies blandly.

 

Hadrian sits up, crawling over Tom’s papers to lean right into his face. He flushes at the proximity, but refuses to back down. “We should do something fun then, to cheer you up. You wanna do something fun?”

 

He leans closer.

 

It makes Tom want to simultaneously lean in and get the fuck away.

 

He can think of a lot of ‘fun’ things he could do with Hadrian. In fact, he already had a few good suggestions already lined up.

 

Tom doesn’t even know what he’s saying, his eyes wide and fixated on the alarming, lovely green irises so close to his own. They’re so close their noses are almost touching, and he can feel Hadrian’s warm breath ghosting over his own lips, like a whisper of a kiss. The intoxicating scent of dark magic is overwhelming, and he can feel the demon’s body heat even from this distance, making him wonder if perhaps demon’s have a higher body temperature than humans.

 

Hadrian’s eyes lower, his sinful lips parting, and then;

 

“You wanna go to taco bell?”

 

Then he startles back, blinking. “What?” He frowns. “What is a, ‘taco bell’?”

 

Hadrian holds it together for a full second, before he collapses into laughter. His shoulder shake as he snickers into his hand. “Oh god. Nothing, it’s nothing -- I’m a horrible person.” He says, grinning.

 

Tom doesn't even have it in him right now to yell at the boy for saying things that don't make sense again. He's still flushed in the face and too flustered for coherent thought, mortified beyond belief that the demon got to him _so easily._

 

His grin tempers a bit, until there’s nothing left but a small, almost melancholic smile. “Anyway, I totally get it. You don’t have to say it out loud, you know. Sorry if I’m bothering you too much. I’ll cool it down - I get you’re stressed and all.” He gets up then, looking like he’s making to leave for another dimension, for who knows how long.

 

For some reason, even though this is exactly what he’s wanted to happen for the past few weeks, it’s the last thing he wants to hear.

 

“No.” He blurts out, to the surprise of them both.

 

“You… you don’t have to go.” He continues, quietly, after he recovers himself.

 

Hadrian blinks. It’s very rare to see the demon caught off guard by anything, but Tom is still a little too mortified with himself to feel smug.

 

“Oh.” He’d like to say that the soft smile Hadrian replies with is not enough to make up for his embarrassment - except it is. It’s the kind of smile that makes everything else in the whole universe seem inconsequential in comparison. “Okay then.”

 

Hadrian is surprisingly quiet as Tom returns to his homework.

 

When he chances a look at the demon, he’s slung sideways on a giant, neon green stuffed ball that definitely wasn’t there earlier, engrossed in that screen he calls his phone. At least he says it a phone, but Tom has never seen a telephone that looks like _that_.

 

To his lack of surprise, Hadrian is once again engrossed in that stupid cat collection game, making happy noises whenever he gets a new one as he takes photos of them literally doing nothing. Tom makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, shaking his head. At least it keeps him quiet, he supposes.

 

They stay like that until it’s time to go to bed, Tom scrawling away, Hadrian occasionally coming over to gush about the latest cat in his collection. He even names one after Tom. Tom should find himself deeply offended, but instead he just smiles at the demon.

 

All in all it’s the most pleasant evening he’s had in a long time.

 

//

 

So Tom goes from avoiding Hadrian to, once again, spending the majority of his time with him. If his own mood swings are enough to give him whiplash, he has no idea how Hadrian feels about it.

 

He’s not sure what changed, but at some point, Hadrian stopped laughing _at_ him, and started laughing _with_ him. Despite Tom not knowing half of his references, he still somehow managed to make the wizard feel included. They felt like… friends.

 

Which was ridiculous. Tom couldn’t be friends with a demon.

 

Except he kind of was. He woke up Hadrian because Hadrian had started to actually sleep in the dorm and the demon could sleep through that racket he called an alarm; they walked to class together, sat next to each other, and ate dinner with each other; they studied together - or Tom studied and Hadrian played his latest mobile game - in the Chamber, or sometimes in the library, just the two of them. Hadrian was friendly enough with his friends, but he stopped going off with them without Tom. Okay. So maybe his idea of friendship was dangerously close to awkward codependency, but whatever. For once in his life, Tom was actually enjoying himself. He liked Hadrian, he could privately admit to himself. He even liked his stupid jokes, his stupid hair, his stupid shoes, and his stupid sweaters. He just _liked_ Hadrian. He liked that he was a demon, the black magic that clung to him like a tangible cloak; he liked the hint of the dangerous side of him that hid in his gleaming eyes and dangerous smirk, the flaming demon sword from hell that occasionally came out to play whenever Hadrian was particularly bored.

 

This is why it’s no surprise to anyone that they decided this weekend to go to Hogsmeade together.

 

And anyway, it’s not - it’s not a _date_ or anything.

 

Except Tom had made it very fucking clear to everyone that he was not to be disturbed, and Hadrian was completely okay with just the two of them, and they were definitely going to Madam Puddifoot’s, and he had specifically asked Hadrian to stick around for the weekend, when the demon normally buggered off to wherever it is that he went when he wasn’t on Earth. But Hadrian never cared whether it was a big group or just the two of them, and he had specifically badgered Tom to go to Madam Puddifoot’s, because frilly and tasteless interior design and towers of cake are exactly the sort of thing Hadrian approves of. So everything about it might seem like a date, but it definitely wasn’t a date. And Tom didn’t think it was, at all.

 

Predictably Hadrian orders them tea and a tower of treats, his eyes growing as wide as saucers when it arrives.

 

Tom wants to gag; macarons of all colors dot the edges, little tarts drizzled with caramel and chocolate decorate the interior of the three-tiered monstrosity, and assorted finger cakes and cinnamon rolls and other questionable but equally sugary confections are scattered about all three tiers.

 

Tom has no intention of touching any of it, so he’s not entirely sure how Hadrian intends to finish it all.

 

He needn’t have worried.

 

After that, the two wander around rather aimlessly, Tom content to let Hadrian lead them window shopping in pure whimsy. They zigzag around so he can peer into all sorts of shops, irrationally enamored with useless things. For an immortal demon who has lived for centuries and probably everything, he’s easily entertained.

 

Eventually Hadrian drags them into a clothing store, eying up a particularly heinous scarf.

 

“It looks like the Valentine’s Day cherub projectile vomited all over you.” Tom comments, when Hadrian asks him if he likes it.

 

Hadrian smiles. “Doesn’t it?” He enthuses, pulling it tighter around him as he observes himself in the mirror. Death would _love_ it. Maybe he should return the favor for his Valentine’s day present and send it for Halloween or something.

 

“The pattern is particularly garish.” Tom agrees, dryly.

 

Of course Hadrian would like it - Hadrian’s fashion sense was eccentric on the best of days, downright bizarre at the worst. For Merlin’s sake his sneakers were mint green today, and that was of course to say nothing of their odd style.

 

Hadrian catches sight of something behind him, and Tom turns to see Malfoy and a few of the Slytherin girls entering the shop. Hadrian waves and flags him over. Malfoy comes like a dog bouncing back to its owner; the girls thankfully move straight for the dresses in the back.

 

“Abraxas, what do you think?” Hadrian is smirking in a way that means he’s fully aware it’s hideous, but is expecting Abraxas to say otherwise anyway.

 

“I think it looks rather dashing.” Malfoy offers. He smiles charmingly. “But then, when someone looks as ravishing as you, I suppose anything would look good.”

 

Which is the most ridiculous thing Tom has heard in a while. Who even uses the word ‘ravishing’ in a sentence these days?

 

Hadrian looks equally as incredulous. Then he looks skeptical. “I can’t tell if you’re insulting me or not.”

 

“Not at all.” Abraxas refutes, dumb looking smile still in place. “I’m telling you, you look beautiful.” As if he could get any more obvious.

 

“Oh. Well, thanks Abraxas!” Hadrian beams, either genuinely pleased with the blatant flirting or just ignoring it. “I’d be a porn star if I didn’t have so much self respect.”

 

Abraxas merely smiles further, despite the fact he has no idea what that means. “You’re most welcome.” He says instead, moving to straighten out Hadrian’s scarf.

 

Tom grits his teeth. He would love to curse the stupid blonde, but it’s not as if _he_ has any claim on Hadrian. Abraxas is at perfect liberty to do what he likes, even if that’s looking at Hadrian like he’s imagining undressing him and bending him over the fedora hat display behind them.

 

Tom absolutely cannot stand this - this whatever you want to call it.

 

This _thing_ people do around Hadrian that Tom finds so obnoxious it’s almost nauseating. Flirting. That’s what he’s pretty sure it’s called. Except flirting would infer some form of finesse - this is not flirting as much as it is blatant and ungraceful propositioning. And it’s not just Abraxas committing this offense; it’s literally everyone Tom knows. He’s fairly sure he’s seen their Astronomy professor do it once. And honestly, Tom hates it when people even look at Hadrian for too long, so he downright despises whenever people try to flirt with him.

 

He knows he shouldn’t care. It’s not as if Hadrian would ever sleep with any of them - he’s a demon for Merlin’s sake. Despite his reputation as a seductor, he’s fairly sure a Demon Prince of all things would never deign to sleep with something they consider so lowly as a human. His beauty and his allure are all part of his manipulations. He is literally a being created to trick humans into making shitty deals, so it’s no surprise everything about him is meant to confound and distract even the smartest of mankind.

 

The problem is - Hadrian is so much more than that.

 

He’s clever and interesting and smart and powerful. He tells shitty jokes but still makes Tom laugh. He’s always messing with people and never takes anything seriously, but he’s honest and genuine with people who matter to him and takes things seriously when they truly require his full attention. He does oddly nice things sometimes, and can occasionally be very kind. He can even be rather thoughtful - almost sweet. There’s so much more to him than the caricature of some evil demon whose only existence and purpose is to fool humans. And it makes Tom _want_. He wants Hadrian. He wants to keep him by his side forever, even though he knows that’s impossible.

 

Maybe that’s why it bothers him so much whenever people flirt with him (jealousy notwithstanding).

 

It’s not only because he’s possessive, but because he knows that it’s pointless. Hadrian is something no human can have - he is above them. He is something to be coveted, but never claimed.

 

These people are wasting their time. As much as he hates to admit it if he thought he even had the slightest chance with Hadrian he’d probably be doing the same. But he knows there’s no point, he’d only be humiliating himself.

 

“ - We should check it out.” Abraxas is in the middle of saying, looking stupidly hopeful as he smiles at Hadrian.

 

“Yeah, sure!” Hadrian agrees with a smile. “Sounds fun.”

 

“You have a very interesting definition of fun.” Abraxas chuckles and swings an arm around Hadrian’s shoulders. It’s an easy gesture that comes off as casual and natural, but Tom knows it was an intentional and calculated move. “But who am I to stop you? Let’s go!” He proclaims, looking down at Hadrian with a matching smile.

 

“Where are you two going?” He interrupts, coldly.

 

It’s enough for Abraxas to remember just who he is, and just what position the blonde has in the hierarchy. “Uh, well - “ he stutters, his arm dropping off from where it was loosely wrapped around Hadrian.

 

“We’re going to Honeydukes, so I can gorge myself on candy mice that cry when you eat them.” Hadrian replies, deadpan. He turns to Abraxas, smile at full voltage. “You know, we don’t have anything like that in Tatooine!”

 

Tom doesn’t even bother to get annoyed about that anymore. Instead he narrows his eyes at the both of them. “What’s the point in that?”

 

“It’s just a bit of fun.” Abraxas says, somewhat uneasily as he takes in Tom’s mood.

 

“Fun.” Tom repeats, flatly. “Hadrian, let’s go back. There’s a book I want to read in the library.”

 

“What? That’s so boring.” Hadrian whines dramatically. “Look, I wanna go eat a mouse and watch it squirm in my hands as I bite its head off. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to come.”

 

“That is absurd and tactless.” Tom snaps back, irritated.

 

“Listen Tom, Abraxas and I did not choose the thug life.” Hadrian retorts. “I don’t expect you to understand. Go read your book if you want, I’ll be back before dinner.”

 

Tom can only fume silently as Hadrian all but shoves Abraxas out the door, overcome with such hatred and impotency he can’t even come up with something to drag Hadrian back with him.

 

Why does it even matter, he thinks, crossly. Wasn’t he just saying Hadrian could do whatever he wants? That includes torturing candy mice, even if it is with Abraxas, who would probably prefer to eat Hadrian before the mice.

 

//

 

Of course, just because Tom understands he has no reason to be upset about it, doesn’t mean he doesn’t still feel upset. It’s irrational, illogical, and unwarranted.

 

Sometimes Tom wonders just how obvious he’s being. Sometimes he’s absolutely positive Hadrian knows, and isn’t saying anything because he can occasionally show some tact sometimes. He is also far more observant and calculating than he lets on, and Tom knows he’s discreet but he’s not sure if he’s that discreet. Hadrian is a demon, after all. He assumes they sort of know everything. Who knows, maybe he has some kind of legilimency powers that even occlumency can’t defend against.

 

At any rate, if Hadrian knows how Tom feels about him it doesn’t look like he intends to ever acknowledge it at all. And he feels like this is the sort of thing Hadrian wouldn’t simply overlook out of some small kindness; no, if Hadrian knew he’d never let Tom live it down.

 

But it’s instances like this that Tom suspects he might just know more than he lets on.

 

“What about you, Hadrian?”

 

They’re in Potions class, halfway through brewing an Angel’s Trumpet Drought - one of the hardest potions they’ll brew this semester - when the girls bring Hadrian into their insipid gossiping.

 

Opposite of the two, sharing the same table, are Prince and Carrow. Both of whom are acceptable enough potioneers - or at the very least, never quite manage to blow anything up, unlike the Gryffindors on the opposite side of the room. Walburga Black sits in front of them, which has the benefit of keeping the girls’ attention away from both Tom and Hadrian, which is really no small feat. The only one who is more popular in this school than Tom is Hadrian, and unlike Tom, Hadrian actually embraces the attention.

 

At any rate, normally this arrangement is a small blessing, but Slughorn has left the classroom to attend to two third-year girls fighting in the hall outside, and the whole class has grown rowdy in his prolonged absence.

 

“I’m sorry what?” Hadrian returns, distracted by his potions project that he is, for once, actually doing by hand instead of just magicking it into existence once class is over.

 

Walburga Black giggles flirtatiously. “We’re playing a game.” This sets off Prince and Carrow into their own round of giggles. She bats her eyelashes. “I asked you a question.”

 

Hadrian only briefly glances at her, before his attention returns to his potion. “What?”

 

Another round of giggles.

 

“Okay, here’s the question: who would you rather sleep with, Professor Slughorn or Professor Dumbledore?”

 

Tom’s face twists in disgust at the very idea. Hadrian actually looks up fully at this, looking bewildered and incredulous. “Excuse me?”

 

But his reaction only sets them off even more.

 

“I _said_ \--

 

“I heard you.” Hadrian cuts her off, looking amused. “Who would I rather fuck?”

 

“You have to chose one of them.” Carrow cuts in mischievously. “You can’t say neither.”

 

To Tom’s disbelief, Hadrian appears to be seriously considering this.

 

“Well, Slughorn smells like ham and a lifetime of poor choices,” he considers. “But it’s either him or Dumbledore, who looks like an aspiring pedophile.”

 

“I’m going to have to go with asexuality.” Hadrian announces.

 

“That’s not allowed!” Carrow cries.

 

“Yeah, you have to pick one of them.” Prince adds with a snobbish look.

 

Walburga only continues to smirk.

 

“That’s not very fair,” Hadrian reprimands. “Asexuality is a real thing, you know. You can’t just discount it because it’s not as apparent as other sexualities.”

 

For a moment it looks like the girls don’t know how to respond. Then Carrow and Prince look like they'll protest, but Walburga silences them.

 

“Fine then, but you have to answer a different one instead.” Walburga tosses her hair, leaning over the table. She raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “If you could pick anyone in the school, _anyone_ at all,” she adds suggestively, “who would you sleep with?”

 

Hadrian pauses to consider this as well. In the interim he turns off the burner beneath his cauldron, the potion simmering down to reveal a perfect brew. He is either purposefully ignoring the obvious innuendo here, or just really doesn't care that Walburga is fishing for him to say he wants to sleep with her.

 

“Still no one.” He declares, cheerfully.

 

“What!” Carrow gasps.

 

“Seriously.” Walburga insists with a giggle.

 

“I am being serious.” Hadrian returns without missing a beat.

 

Prince frowns. “You wouldn’t sleep with anyone?”

 

“No,” Hadrian says, looking her dead in the eye with a serious expression. “I’d never have sex with anyone unless tentacles are involved.”

 

Tom ducks his head, coughing his way out of a choking fit. For the life of him, he can’t tell if Hadrian is being serious or not.  

 

Apparently, neither can the girls.

 

Even Walburga has stopped laughing.

 

“Sorry about that, everyone!” Slughorn throws the door open, a bit sweaty but otherwise unharmed. “Got a bit out of hand, that one. Honestly… the hair pulling. Never understood the hair pulling.”

 

He tuts as he walks back into the classroom, doing a double take at Hadrian.

 

“Why, Mr. Skywalker, this is a perfectly brewed Angel’s Trumpet Draught. Just magnificent! Absolutely magnificent!”

 

“Thanks, Professor.” Hadrian positively beams at him.

 

Slughorn nods, before his gaze snaps to the girls behind. “Well? Come on then girls, why are you all standing around? Where’s your potions?”

 

Suffice to say, they have no intention of bothering him about that sort of stuff ever again. In fact, they don’t even know if he even likes humans, judging from their shocked and vaguely disgusted expressions. Tom of course can’t help but smirk; he also can’t help but wonder if Hadrian is really just fucking with them for the hell of it, or if he knows how Tom feels about other people flirting with him and wanted to make it clear to them they should back off.

 

Quite honestly, he’s not sure which he wants it to be.

 

//

 

Hadrian’s little stunt in Potions is enough to at least make most of the girls in the school second guess him, but it certainly doesn’t deter Abraxas.

 

“Tentacles!” He laughs, once the story gets to him. “Good one, Hadrian. Good one. Shall I introduce you to the giant squid then, perhaps?”

 

Hadrian smirks at him, either playing along or being genuinely serious. “I’d love that, actually.”

 

“Truly?” Abraxas blinks. Tom thinks he might make a real remark on that, but instead he only grins roguishly. “Well then, why don’t we go? This is the best weather we’ve had in ages, might as well make the most of it.”

 

“Sure, why not.” The demon humors him with a shrug. Tom almost wants to drag him back by the ear and command him to stay as far away from Abraxas as he could throw him. But then he reminds himself he has no real reason to do that.

 

What does it matter, anyway? Abraxas could go on pining for as long as he wanted; it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

 

Abraxas turns to them, grin turning wicked. “We’ll be back!” He assures, as he and Harry get up from their table in the common room.

 

Tom notices that he didn’t invite anyone else. If it was truly that deliberate, Nott and Lestrange don’t notice at all.

 

“He’s not actually being serious, is he?” Nott asks, once they’ve left.

 

Lestrange snorts. “Of course not. Skywalker’s just having us on.”

 

Oh, Tom thinks, disparagingly, you have _no_ idea.

 

_// stay dandy // android52 //_

 

The day of Hadrian’s fake birthday arrives with much fanfare by the students.

 

Hadrian had told him he’d decided he wanted to celebrate a fake birthday - since he was posing as a human he may as well try out all these strange things humans do, like birthdays. Tom told him it was an utterly useless idea, but Hadrian tended to like useless things, so that did little to deter him. At any rate, who was he to tell Hadrian to stop playing with all the students? He more or less did the same; of course Tom manipulated them to further his goals. Hadrian manipulated them to… he actually had no idea. To genuinely fuck with them for the fun of it, most likely.

 

Abraxas gets him an honest to God two-tiered birthday cake, which is almost enough to bring the demon to tears. He gets an assortment of useless trinkets from the Slytherins, equally as useless chocolate and cauldron cakes from a gaggle of Hufflepuff girls, and a couple marginally useful books from some Ravenclaws. None of the mentioned gifts elicited such a reaction as the cake. Apparently it is his favorite.

 

Tom of course does not have a present for Hadrian, because Hadrian is a terrifying Demon Prince of Hell, and they don’t have fucking birthdays.

 

This makes perfect sense, but still makes him feel inadequate somehow once he gets to breakfast and has nothing to give the boy.

 

It’s testimony to how enamored Hadrian is with his birthday cake that he doesn’t even use this as an opportunity to make a scene about how Tom doesn’t love him enough because he didn’t get a present and how betrayed he feels as a friend, and other dramatic nonsense. Abraxas is all smiles, sitting remarkably close to the boy. He is spending far too much attention to the way Hadrian’s mouth closes in around each piece of cake, and how he makes a sinful, delighted noise each time he tastes it. Incidentally, so is Tom. Honestly though, can’t Hadrian just eat his damn cake like a normal person?

 

“This is the best, Abraxas.” Hadrian sighs, once he’s polished off an entire tier of the cake. The remaining half already has a few bites in it.

 

If Abraxas is surprised - or disturbed - with Hadrian’s limitless stomach, he doesn’t show it all. In fact, he continuously to look smugly pleased. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He all but purrs. “It is your birthday, after all. You should indulge once in a while.”

 

“That’s a good point.” Hadrian smiles, stretching his arms over his head and giving another little sigh. “Maybe I’ll take a nice long bath and play some street fighter or something.”

 

Abraxas just continues to smile stupidly, even though he definitely has no idea what Hadrian is even saying. Unfortunately Tom does, and now all he can imagine is a very wet and naked Hadrian in the bath, yelling expletives at that little screen of his whenever he loses.

 

-

 

It’s a perfectly sunny Saturday morning when Tom kind of low key loses his shit.

 

Hadrian saunters into the hall, fashionably late as usual, grinning and saying his hello’s to all the assembled Slytherins. Despite the fact they have been oddly subdued all morning, they all ecstatically return the greeting, aside from Tom of course, who pretends to ignore him. This doesn’t stop Hadrian from sitting in the spot right next to him, too close for comfort, his hair messier than usual.

 

Tom wonders if he was out in some other dimension doing something interesting again, because he had been there when Tom had fallen asleep but his bed was empty when Tom had woken up. Hadrian had all sorts of stories to tell about distant worlds and adventures, the majority of them Tom only took at face value. Hadrian could be messing with him, or Hadrian could be telling the truth; either way he’d never get to confirm so he just considered them to be interesting, if not outlandish stories.

 

At any rate, Hadrian is usually bursting at the seams to tell Tom all about it whenever he does run off somewhere interesting, but he does nothing of the sort today. He looks like he hasn’t slept, though.

 

“Oh, Hadrian,” Walburga says with unfiltered emphasis, after the demon has buttered his toast. “Have you heard about Abraxas?”

 

“Abraxas?” Hadrian repeats, bored. “What about him?”

 

Eileen’s eyes grow wide. “His father just died, didn’t you hear?”

 

“Why would I hear about that?”

 

“It’s all over the _Prophet._ ” She continues, with a dramatic eye roll. “He left school earlier to attend to family matters - just to let you know.” She adds, looking expectant.

 

“Oh.” Hadrian blinks. “Um… okay?”

 

“Okay?” Walburga repeats, from where she was listening in at Eileen’s elbow, voice rising an octave in some kind of self-righteous fury. “That’s all you have to say?”

 

Hadrian’s brow creases. “What else am I supposed to say? Sorry? My condolences, I guess. But shit, it’s not my fault he died.”

 

“But you two - “ she sputters inelegantly. “You two are, are…”

 

At this, she darts a furtive look around them, before leaning in close. “You two are like, together, right?” She whispers urgently.

 

Hadrian heaves his way out of a coughing fit, choking on his inopportunely timed sip of orange juice. “ _What?_ ”

 

“You two weren’t exactly subtle.” Eileen points out blankly.

 

“Subtle about what?” Hadrian repeats, confused.

 

“You know, always going off together, always talking to each other quietly and laughing…” Eileen waves her hand as she pointedly drifts off.

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Hadrian asks, still looking confused.

 

Tom was irritated with the topic of conversation, but that was fairly par for the course when someone was talking to Hadrian. The idea of Abraxas and Hadrian made him irrationally angry, but ultimately he brushed it off.

 

Hadrian would never, so there was no point worrying over it.

 

“We’re just saying, you guys are pretty close, you know.” Walburga adds. She raises a suggestive brow. “ _Really_ close.”

 

Recognition flashes through Hadrian’s eyes as he frowns. “So?”

 

“So we’re just pointing out, considering your position, it’s only proper to send your condolences. Perhaps even accompany him? I’m sure he’d want you to meet his family - it would be rather appropriate, considering the circumstances.” Eileen explains.

 

“Oh, wow, okay. I think you guys are getting the wrong impression here.” Hadrian drops his fork, blinking. “Look, I know enough to fuck him, not to give him life advice. Or like, mourn his grandfather with him.”

 

Tom’s own fork clatters onto his plate.

 

Fortunately no one is paying attention, more concerned with the matter at him.

 

“Father.” Eileen corrects almost absently, her eyes growing wide.

 

“Sure, whatever.”

 

Eileen and Walburga look horrified and somehow insulted. “How can you even say that?” Walburga hisses. “Have you no shame?”

 

Hadrian blinks. “...No?” He hazards, looking confused.

 

Tom can’t even process this. His mind has gone numb.

 

“You slept with him?” He asks, toneless, without looking up.

 

“I mean, he was there.” Hadrian confesses with a shrug. He leans in closer to Tom. “And to be totally honest… the sex was not only just weird, but oddly uneventful.”

 

That is the last thing Tom wants to hear. If that was supposed to be some kind of consolation, it really wasn’t.

 

Tom doesn’t want to know anything about Hadrian having sex - not unless Hadrian is having sex with _him_. Which he isn’t. Clearly. No, instead he’s off fucking Abraxas, who literally sleeps with anyone.

 

Tom stares blankly at absolutely nothing, still in some weird and numbing state of shock.

 

Hadrian slept with Abraxas.

 

Hadrian slept with a _human._

 

A human that wasn’t him.

 

//

 

Those three thoughts, in that order, continued endlessly in his head for the rest of the day. He couldn’t think about anything else, and by the time dinner rolled around that numbing shock had turned into absolute anger. It was sort of a directionless fury, but right now there was only Hadrian to be upset at and he was attracting Tom’s anger like a lightning rod right now.

 

Hadrian, of course, is dense enough not to realize _why_ Tom is in a bad mood, but observant enough to recognize that he is.

 

“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Hadrian asks, puzzled. “You were fine earlier.”

 

 _That was before Abraxas started trying to get into your pants - and then succeeded,_ he obviously does not say aloud.

 

There were probably a lot of better ways to handle the situation, but of course Tom choses none of them. Much like his own journey to accept his feelings, Tom does not handle the situation with any sense of grace at all.

 

“I’m perfectly fine.” Tom snaps.

 

Hadrian spares him an incredulous look. “Who are you trying to convince here?”

 

Tom sneers. “No one’s making you walk back with me, Hadrian. If you would prefer the company of your new lackeys, by all means go back to them. I’m sure they’d be _more_ than happy to accommodate you.”

 

“My lackeys?” Hadrian scoffs. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous; is it because your minions like me better now?” He bats his eyelashes.

 

Tom shoves him away.

 

The demon snickers into his hand, before realizing that Tom is actually fucking furious.

 

“Is that really what this is?” He asks, frowning. “Look, they definitely still follow you. I’m not trying to steal your followers away from you or anything.”

 

“No,” Tom spits back, furiously, “you’re just trying to fuck your way through all of them, aren’t you?”

 

Hadrian reels back. Realization crosses his face. “Oh. Is _that_ what this is about?” He actually has the gall to look amused, even relieved. “Look, that’s not going to change anything about our deal. What I do on my own time is my own problem.”

 

“Yes, apparently so.” Tom replies, stiffly.

 

Hadrian catches his frosty tone, frowning again. “... Is there a problem here?”

 

“There’s no problem here,” Tom retorts coldly. “Who you spread your legs for is your own business. If you want to lend yourself out like a whore, what do I care about it?”

 

Hadrian blinks. “Are you trying to say you think I’m a slut?”

 

“Think? At this point, it’s _fact._ ”

 

Hadrian reels back, surprised.

 

He’s never really understood why humans consider their basic instinct so shameful. Life procreates. It’s a great thing for their species, and the act of procreating is pretty great. Demons have a reputation for being all about carnal desires and general debauchery - most of the time it’s pretty damn warranted. Hadrian is certainly not the most promiscuous of all the Princes, but he’s slept his way around, that’s for sure.

 

If Barbatos called him a slut, he’d either think he was being affectionate or complimentary.

 

But he’s pretty sure in this instance Tom meant it as an insult.

 

“Maybe we should calm down,” Hadrian says, apprehensively. “I don’t really get why you’re so angry, but -

 

“You don’t know why I’m angry?” Tom retorts, sounding pretty fucking angry. “You don’t get _why_ I would be angry that some fucking _demon_ shows up at my school, starts to mess with my life and everyone in it, does whatever he wants whenever he wants to without any care about repercussions, is self-serving and self-centered and thinks everything is a fucking joke - maybe the better question is; why _wouldn’t_ I be mad?”

 

Hadrian blinks, a little stunned at the outburst.

 

Everything he said was pretty spot on, true, but Hadrian still felt - he didn’t know. He didn’t know what he was feeling, he just knew it felt bad. He felt surprised, which was silly, because he knew all of that about himself already. He just - he thought Tom liked him. He hadn’t realized the boy had felt this way.

 

“Oh.” Hadrian says, in a small voice.

 

“I think it’s about time you leave, demon.” Tom continues, coldly.

 

Hadrian is still staring at him with big, wide green eyes, looking completely lost.

 

Tom tosses something at him. Hadrian catches it blindly, looking down to see it’s that breath mint he’d nabbed from a chinese takeout restaurant, and then promptly gave to Tom as a summoning key.

 

“Do what you like,” he dismisses with a look of pure hatred. “I don’t really care anymore.”

 

He turns around and keeps walking, leaving Hadrian blinking in bewilderment.

 

_//_

 

_// groove of the labyrinth // android52 //_

 

_//_

 

Hadrian spends an unnecessary amount of time moping around in the lap of luxury, also know as his brother’s stately mansion.

 

It was apparently built by enslaved humans who were cursed to an eternity in Hell. But from the classiness of the architecture he’s going to assume it was actually just bought from Sotheby’s. At any rate it is large, opulent, and filled with people who are contractually obligated to do his bidding, and it’s the perfect place to be miserable.

 

Hadrian’s brother, Count Furfur, the thirty-fourth Prince of Hell, is just as fabulous as his name would imply.

 

He also tends to dote on Hadrian and lavish him with attention, which is another reason Hadrian decided to seek refuge here at his brother’s mansion rather than one of his own.

 

“It’s unlike you to be so sad and miserable.” Furfur points out. “Especially for this long. What is it, you can tell me, I promise. Is it one of our miscreant brothers? Death getting you down? Love troubles?”

 

Hadrian pulls a face at that last one.

 

Furfur makes a triumphant noise. “It is, isn’t it?” He gasps. “Hadrian, you naughty boy! Who did you go off and fall in love with, without telling your favorite brother first?”

 

“It’s no one.” Hadrian grunts, rolling over on his lounge chair.

 

“Lies!” Furfur cries with delight. “This is the look of a man angstily pining his life away!”

 

Hadrian scowls, but says nothing.

 

“What happened?” His brother scoots closer, swiping his martini off the table between them to fix him a suggestive look over the rim of the glass. “Lover’s quarrel? Was he cheating on you? Did he buy you gaudy jewelry? Not all diamonds are created equally, you know.”

 

“Nothing happened.” He protests, but it’s muffled by the towel he’s laying on. “There’s no one. No cheating. No shitty jewelry. There was an argument -- but there was no love involved! It was just a deal, is all.”

 

“Oh! Now this is getting interesting.” Furfur comments, eyes twinkling. “What do you mean, a deal?”

 

“We have a contract.” He pauses. “ _Had._ Although even then we kind of didn’t. I was really just doing it to entertain myself.”

 

“Oh, Hadrian.” Furfur says, empathetically. “I’m so sorry.”

 

Hadrian lifts his head at this. “What for?”

 

“You do a lot of things for entertainment; helping people is not one of them.” The Count points out with a pitying look. “You must have really liked him if you helped him without a contract.”

 

“I mean, I liked him. He was entertaining, and fun to mess with. But I wasn’t in love with him.” Hadrian adds with a narrowed gaze. “Definitely not. Anyway he’s a total douchemonkey, as it turns out, and not worth my time anyway.”

 

“That’s the spirit.” Count Furfur nods sagely. “He’s definitely not worth it.”

 

At that the demon downs his martini, puts his glass down and leans over to cuddle him. Hadrian would throw him off, but the head massage is actually kind of nice. They lay like that for a while, until Hadrian almost feels like he’s about to fall asleep.

 

“Listen, Hadrian,” Furfur says, stirring him out of his light dozing. “The key to love is finding someone who loves you like Kanye West loves Kanye West. You just can’t settle for anything else. You deserve only the best, you know.” He advises solemnly.

 

Hadrian nods. “Yeah, you’re right.” He sighs.

 

“Of course I’m right!” He gets up at that. “When am I ever wrong?”

 

He shakes out his mane of golden curls, frowns imperiously, and then claps his hand. “Servant!” He barks. A couple of the pool boys jump at the sound. “Where are those mojitos I wanted? They’re not going to serve themselves.”

 

He sighs dramatically as someone scurries off to go get them, tossing his hair. After a moment a servant returns with a tray of drinks. The Count makes a pleased noise, grabbing them both before sauntering back towards where Hadrian is still collapsed face-first into his lounge chair.

 

“I know what will cheer you up.” Furfur reveals, once a mojito is in hand and the world is righted once again. He hands Hadrian his drink with a delighted smirk. “Let’s go to Vegas, and roam the deserts in search of strippers and cocaine.”

 

Hadrian takes the offered drink, scoffing. “What roaming? Neither of those will be hard to find in Vegas.” He takes a sip of his mojito. “And anyway, I don’t think I want a repeat of the last time the two of us went out.”

 

“Oh come on,” Furfur guffaws theatrically. “It wasn’t that bad.”

 

“I guess,” Hadrian replies, unconvinced. “If you overlook the fact we started the night playing bingo at church and somehow ended up at the strip club.”

 

Still, he goes along anyhow. Does he really have anything better to do than drink and gamble away his life right now?

 

//

 

Tom’s POV. angsty and dramatic. But who the hell wants to have to sit through that? 

 

Anyway back to Hadrian: 

 

//

 

Three hours later, Hadrian and friends have managed to crawl their way out of the Venetian to nearby Caesar’s Palace, all the while getting progressively drunker as they bum free drinks off Barbatos as he continues his endless winning streak across every blackjack table in the strip. It was a great idea to invite him. But that probably isn’t fair, because Barbatos is also the Prince of luck and good fortune; still they’ve yet to be kicked out so they may as well just stick around for the booze.

 

“But did I fuck him?” Hadrian cries, once they've gotten bored of watching Barbatos swindle the hotels out of their cash and retired to the nearby bar. “No! Instead I fucked his friend, who quite honestly wasn’t nearly as attractive. Although he was blonde.”

 

“You and the blondes.” Furfur nods, solemnly.

 

“And he got me a cake for the birthday I totally bullshitted.” Hadrian adds. He pauses, blinking as a thought occurs to him. “In hindsight I’m not in the least bit surprised I whored myself out for Tiramisu.”

 

Furfur rubs his cheek against Hadrian’s shoulder in that endearing way only drunk people can manage. “It’ll be okay, little Prince.”

 

“Yeah, we always knew you had shit taste in men.” Vassago agrees.

 

“I would argue that point, but apparently I officially fuck people who own bucket hats, so I can’t talk shit.” Hadrian throws his hands up in defeat.

 

“He owned a bucket hat?” Furfur marvels.

 

“Yes. God. How much lower can I go? Manbuns?” He pulls his phone out of his pocket with a surprised look, before the expression turns to one of utter disgust. “And what’s with these self-help emails? Why the fuck does Kimaris keep sending me this Confuscious ass bullshit?”

 

“I think he’s trying to tell you something.” Vassago says blandly.

 

“Yeah, well, he’s an ignorant slut and can go to hell.” Hadrian bitches, tossing his phone into a nearby trashcan. Nevermind the fact that they already all live in Hell anyway.

 

“You just got that thing!” Vassago protests on principle.

 

“Whatever it blows up anyway.” Hadrian retorts crossly.

 

Hadrian flags down one of the servers. The waiter swoops by with a vaguely impressed eye, sizing up the amount of empty glasses Hadrian has collected. “Are you sure you should be having another?” He asks, cautiously.

 

“Just keep the Mai Tai’s coming.” Hadrian insists. “I feel like being a trashy hot mess, and quite frankly, I’m already halfway there.”

 

“I thoroughly disagree with the idea of getting trashed over men on principle, but I would like another as well.” Furfur requests. “Actually, make that a strawberry daquiri. May as well go all the way, balls to the wall and all that.”

 

Vassago gives him a flat look. “I’ll stick with water.” He says, flatly.

 

“What does it even matter, I’m at perfect liberty to sleep with whomever I want.” Hadrian continues, moody and already on a role. “Shit, I could sleep with anyone here if I wanted to!”

 

Furfur nods along solemnly. “Very true, very true.”

 

Hadrian looks around, before sighing noisily, slumping over his drink with defeat. “Except I don’t really want to. God dammit, I wish I had low self esteem and no standards; then I wouldn’t care.”

 

“You do have low self esteem and no standards.” Vassago points out.

 

“Hadrian is too vain and narcissistic to have low self esteem - but I agree he has no standards.” Barbatos adds as he walks up to the bar, hopping into the empty seat by Vassago.

 

Hadrian has nothing to say in his defense.

 

“They finally kick you out?” Furfur asks as Barbatos settles in and hails the bartender.

 

Barbatos shrugs. “They would have eventually. I decided to save them the trouble. And the woman next to me looked like the Michelin man and smelled like Chef Boyardee. It was getting overwhelming.”

 

Furfur scrunches his nose. “Tragic.”

 

Suddenly a shrill noise pierces the bar.

 

Vassago blinks, looking up. “Is that Katamari?” He wonders aloud, bewildered.

 

Hadrian’s head pops up, as he looks around blearily. “Is that my phone?” He asks, equally as bewildered. He turns to the trashcan he threw it into, eyes widening when he realizes it is.

 

With some poor coordination he manages to jump off his chair and stagger over to the trashcan, fishing out his buzzing phone.

 

He stares down at it, blankly. “He’s calling me.”

 

“He’s calling you?” Furfur gasps, sounding delighted at the turn of events. Furfur was all about the drama. “Well, what are you waiting for? Answer it?”

 

“What? Don’t answer it.” Vassago cuts in, exasperated. “Let that fucker get hit by a car or something.”

 

“I don’t even think they have cars,” Hardian continues, still half-wondering if he’s drunker than he thought he was.

 

Finally he just decides to answer and figure it out from there.

 

“...Hello?” He hazards, as he all but stumbles down the marble walkways to a quieter part of the casino.

 

There’s nothing from the other line. Hadrian pulls the phone away from his ear to see if it disconnected, but it says the call is still going. He manages to slump down by a closed storefront, lost somewhere in the monstrous indoor city inadequately named Caesar’s Palace, squinting out into all the chaos and wondering what the fuck was going on with his life.

 

“Hellloooo,” he calls again, just in case.

 

Another long pause.

 

“Hadrian,” he finally says, making Hadrian sit upright in an odd moment of lucidity. Oh shit. This isn’t a hallucination.

 

“Tom?”

 

“Who else would it be?” He all but snaps.

 

“How are you even calling me?” Hadrian asks, perplexed.

 

“What do you mean?” Tom replies, annoyed. “I’m using a phone.”

 

“Yeah but - what? How?”

 

“I don’t know. I just punched the numbers you gave me in this sequence.”

 

“What phone?”

 

“The orphanage has a phone in the office.” Tom explains, sounding impatient. “What does it matter?”

 

Hadrian pulls the phone away from him, stunned. So Tom was somehow transcending space, time, and reality using an antique _landline_ ? He’d seen a lot of stuff that made no sense, but this was particularly stunning. He looks down at his Galaxy in absolute wonder. _Damn_ , Samsung.

 

“Huh. Well, okay.” Still, returning to the matter at hand, “But - why are you calling me? Are you making another horcrux?”

 

There’s a long moment of silence.

 

“Not as of yet, no.”

 

This time it’s Hadrian’s turn to be silent. He frowns out in the distant casino, all the flashing lights and tinkling drinks and laughter filling up the silence on his end, making it all the more overwhelming.

 

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says, faintly.

 

“I… didn’t mean what I said.” He grits out, sounding as if it physically pains him to actually have to admit to wrong.

 

Despite the fact they’re not facetiming, Hadrian can practically _see_ his jaw clench, the pulse in his brow and the stern frown on his face as he unwillingly forces himself to apologize.

 

“I still have need of you.” He admits, begrudging.

 

Hadrian isn’t even sure what to say. Someone wins jackpot at the nearby slots, causing a riot of blinking lights and noise.

 

 _I’m too drunk for this shit,_ he thinks, miserably.

 

“Oh. Well, cool.” That’s about the best he can manage right now.

 

“You’ll be here tomorrow, then.” For the life of him Hadrian can’t tell if that’s a question or a statement right now.

 

“Sure?” He says cautiously, before blinking away some of the fog around his brain. “Uh - yeah, sure. Whatever’s good for you man. Anyway I have to go - strippers to see, blow to snort, all that.”

 

He hangs up before that conversation could get any more disastrous, holding out his phone away from himself like it’s a pipe bomb or something, as if waiting for it to go off again.

 

When there’s nothing but the sounds of people winning and losing their entire fortunes at two o’clock in the morning, he decides he’s safe. Then he promptly decides he’s a little too drunk to figure out what the fuck that was about, and he’ll just leave that for the morning. For now, there really are more strippers and cocaine to be had.

 

 

  
  
  
  


 


	3. Groovesona Q

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> -Hadrian decides his destiny might just be to be a moe girl cooking show idol  
> -Tom is not tinderella, although he may as well just start selling his own poetry  
> -the return of twitter!Hadrian  
> \- and at some point Hadrian just learns to embrace his position as the epitome of waifu wednesday.
> 
>  
> 
> -chongqing shoutout for skee because I miss her like crazy :*(

 

 3. Groovesona Q

//

 

A horrible night’s sleep and a disgusting Starbucks unicorn-themed frappuccino later, Hadrian thinks it’s about time he stopped procrastinating and deal with the mess he got himself into. He leaves his brothers passed out in their hotel suite; there are no tigers or babies, so he already considers this to be a successful trip to Vegas. He picks his way through the messy hotel room with a flute of champagne he commandeered off his bedside table, moving to down it in one gulp before realizing that was probably not one of his best life choices, and puts it down in favor of finding coffee. Their suite, unfathomably, has no coffee. It’s a damn travesty, and he makes sure the Venetian damn well knows it, before leaving the front check-in counter in a huff. He finds a Starbucks along the strip eventually, and then teleports through time and space to visit this ridiculous human who actually had the gall to call him and demand he come back. Seriously. A human.

 

He finds Tom easily enough, holed up in his room at the orphanage, looking like he intends to ignore everyone else there for as long as feasibly possible. Hadrian spares a moment to look around the room; sparsely furnished, and smaller than a Tokyo city apartment. There are no personal possessions to be seen, but then, Hadrian didn’t think Tom was the type to care about that stuff. He knew Tom was an orphan. In the abstract, anyway. It’s weird to see the evidence in front of him. It makes him feel… he doesn’t know. He’s already had far too many feelings and it’s not even midday, which is a sure sign he needs to find himself a new pill doctor, or just steal Vassago’s.

 

Finally he clears his throat, and the figure hunched over the desk all but leaps into the air.

 

“Hey,” he says, as cheerfully as he can manage through his hangover.

 

Tom let out a long breath. “Hadrian,” he returns, once he’s recovered himself.

 

“So I got astoundingly wasted last night, and this morning was one of those mornings where I woke up and felt like I had to say sorry to the whole goddamn world, and so I pulled a total basic white girl move and got myself a frappucino and pulled my shit together. At any rate, I figured I may as well start with you.” Hadrian blurts out, before he can lose his nerve.

 

Tom blinks at him.

 

“Yeah. In hindsight, fucking your best friend was totally not buddies.” Hadrian winces. “Although in my defense, he made it really easy.”

 

Tom’s face is impressively impassive. “You have nothing to apologize for.” Tom returns, flatly. “It’s really not any of my business.”

 

“I feel like I do, though, because you know I live to troll but even I have to draw a line somewhere.” The demon replies, as he awkwardly stuffs his hands into the pocket of his sweats. Even _that_ he manages to make look incredibly attractive. “So. Yeah. No more fucking your friends, promise. I will be a perfectly professional demon Prince, I promise.”

 

It’s about as much of a peace offering as he can give.

 

Fortunately Tom takes the offered olive branch. “You? Professional?” He scoffs.

 

“Mostly professional.” Hadrian amends with a cheeky, relieved grin. “Or maybe just business casual. Whatever.”

 

“I don’t even know what that means.” He scowls, but at this point that happens so frequently it’s practically an inside joke of its own.

 

All the tension in his body leaves him at that. Hadrian returns Tom’s scowl with a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, one of these days I’ll get around to explaining them all. And then you’ll be so scandalized you’ll never want to talk to me again.” He ends, cheerfully.

 

“No, please, allow me to live in ignorance.” Tom returns, drily.

 

Hadrian merely rolls his eyes. “Well, whatever. Anyway, so we’re cool, right? No more hard feelings?” He sticks his hand out.

 

“Yes,” Tom agrees, perhaps cooler than usual, but he takes Hadrian’s proffered hand and shakes it anyway.

 

It doesn’t really feel like it though, is the thing. He doesn’t feel like sprawling himself over Tom’s bed and demanding the human entertain him as he usually would - he doesn’t feel like dragging Tom through London town in search of a good time. Well he probably wouldn’t have done that anyway, because he doubts Tom is all that into strippers or drugs, or gambling, or getting wasted.

 

Still though, something about their relationship has definitely changed, and Hadrian really has no one to blame but himself.

 

//

 

So Dr. Girlfriend might have gone a bit overboard on twitter this week, but in his defense Bain Schroeder, Ben Tornabean, and Brock Sampson were not exactly helping the situation. Then again, when have they ever? His brothers are lousy fucks, but Hadrian’s always known that so he has no excuse to be surprised. So Hadrian gets into petty arguments on a platform that only allows for 140 characters, rages on Trump, and sullenly watches a whole lot of yugioh on Netlfix. It’s awful, but it’s so awful it sort of makes him feel better.

 

He’s impressed Tom hasn’t been all up in his shit yet, but then remembers the clusterfuck that particular problem happens to be, and then gets even more upset and watches even more Netflix.

 

Hadrian frowns. He doesn’t normally feel bad about fucking with people, and certainly never to the point he’s moping around watching a show about card games and people who take them way too seriously.

 

Again, he is reminded all his current angst is all his fault, and then this sick spiral of sullen unhappiness continues.

 

What he really wants to do is drop back onto Earth and find Tom and - and, he doesn’t really know. Shake him really hard until the boy is back to the exasperated and vaguely horrified wizard who looks at him like he never knows what to make of him. But he can't.

 

So he tries to lay low and not stir up any trouble, but that’s an idea doomed to fail, considering his twitter account.

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:20]:

_‘Obviously we have a lot of problems we need to address’ I say, referring to one specific problem, which I created, alone._

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:21]:

_*comes across a slight inconvenience*_

_Me:  you know what would solve this ???? death_

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:23]:

_If u cant handle me at my worst then leave I don’t have a best i’m always awful_

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:24]:

_The moral of this story is to never having feelings for anybody ever_

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:26]:

_My talents include avoiding difficult conversations and getting really sad over things I saw coming_

 

@Bain Schroeder [09:30]:

_Hadrian. It is 9 in the fucking morning. Have your existential crisis somewhere else that isn’t my twitter feed_

 

@Dr. Girlfriend [09:30]:

_Shut up @Bain Schroeder I like crying_

 

@Bain Schroeder [09:31]:

_Bitch I WILL drown you_.

 

Hadrian decides Barbatos has a damn good point though, and decides to stop lamenting his life to the public at large. Instead he just starts trolling other people online, which ends up getting him banned. Again. Damn it. He’s glad he was forced to stop when Satan interrupts his Kardashian game marathon.

 

“What the hell have you been posting online,” he starts without preamble.

 

“That was like, three hours ago already.” Hadrian rolls his eyes. “You’re a little late to the party.”

 

“I don’t care. Stop this melodrama immediately - I don’t want to keep hearing about all the commotion your existential bullshit is causing online from my aids every time I need an update.”

 

Hadrian just sighs deeply. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

 

“Hadrian, do I need to put you on a backpack leash?” Lucifer asks, seriously. “Please, for god’s - for my sake, behave in a manner appropriate for your age, which is not five, and act responsibly online.”

 

Hadrian scowls. “Fine.”

 

Satan hangs up abruptly, leaving Hadrian annoyed and listless and with a shit headache.

 

He doesn’t know what to do anymore, and yugioh has lost its appeal. He can’t even furiously check his phone every other second like a too-pressed girlfriend, because Tom doesn’t even have a phone to send him incredibly unpunctual cryptic texts on anyway.

 

Hadrian blinks, taking stock of his life right now. Is he really sitting here moping about a boy?

 

This is enough to motivate him to get up, and make his way to the office.

 

“Oh, Hadrian, what are you doing here?” It’s Kimaris, the bastard, and he looks far too smug to see him here. “I thought you said you were too cool for adulthood.”

 

“I stand by that.”

 

“What are you doing here then?” His brother asks, coolly. “Has your sneaker collection finally grown to the point they’ve formed a coalition and rebelled against you and ousted you from your house?”

 

“It’s not that bad.” Hadrian retorts, even though everyone in Hell knows it really is.

 

“You have Air Force 1’s in literally every color they make it in.” Kimaris points out flatly.

 

And at this point, he posts them so much on instagram Nike may as well just pay him. But Hadrian really isn’t in the mood to get into arguments with the sixty-sixth prince, Marquis Kimaris, in the same way he’s not in the mood to do anything right now. Also, if he gets into a fight with him now, Kimaris will only take it as further incentive to keep forwarding him all these Buddhist self-help email newsletters.

 

He finds his way to Vassago’s office, after an unbearably long and difficult elevator ride to the top of the tower with a bunch of stuffy bureaucrats. Oddly enough his brother appears rather maudlin, staring vacantly at his small pet turtle.

 

Prince Vassago, the third Demon Prince of Hell, has a weird affection for aquatic animals.

 

Even now his desk is rather crowded with them. Aside from the reptile he has three fish; they sit in a cascading waterfall, separated into three blocks, because they’re the kind of fish that viciously tear each other to pieces if they see each other. Hadrian snorts. That sounds like exactly the kind of fish that Vassago would like. They’re propped up against the window at the far side of his desk; on the other side are a couple of bamboo plants - gifts from Barbatos, to improve his ‘zen’, whatever the hell that meant - sitting in a tank with a tiny turtle. Hadrian loves that turtle. Everyone in this damn building loves that turtle. Turtle’s name is Turtle. The fish are named; Tuna, Mackerel, and Bonito.

 

...None of them are tuna fish, mackerels, or bonitos.

 

At any rate, Hadrian wanders into his office, propping himself casually on the wall by the demon’s desk. “How’s Turtle?” He asks, by way of greeting.

 

“He’s fared better than the fish - and Toad, incidentally.” Vassago replies, distractedly.

 

“Toad?”

 

“The frog.” He explains, flatly.

 

“Ah. So he died already too?” Hadrian nods sagely.

 

Vassago is as notorious for loving fish as he is for killing them. He just loves them a little too hard, is all.

 

“Everything dies,” Vassago shrugs. “Unless, of course, a darling little brother of mine decides to intervene.”

 

Well, that is not at all untrue. “I like to think I don’t abuse my powers.” Hadrian replies.

 

Vassago snorts, but wisely doesn’t comment on that. Hadrian almost wishes he did though, because he likes this new vein of conversation even less; “How’s the human?”

 

“He’s…” Hadrian grimaces. “Well, he’s alive.”

 

Vassago merely raises a brow. “So you two have made up then?” He spins his chair so he can pierce Hadrian with a delighted, overly invested smile. Oh great. That means the office is already making bets on his love life.

 

Well, he supposes the more people who are overly-invested, the more people he has to loudly and liberally complain to. With that thought in mind, Hadrian drapes himself opposite Vassago’s desk, sprawling across one of the armchairs reserved or guests. “Not really,” he reveals, sighing dramatically. “I don’t know what to do; he said he forgives me, but he’s clearly being _tsundere_ as fuck about it with this passive-aggressive bullshit, because he totally has not forgiven me.”

 

Vassago tents his hands, propping his chin up on them as he stares at Hadrian with twinkling eyes. “And why do you think he’s so mad at you?”

 

Hadrian blows a raspberry. “Because I’m low key a total asshole? Wait, not even low key - I give no fucks about anyone and I never make a secret of it. But I’m pretty sure it’s gotten me in trouble this time.”

 

“Maybe because you actually give a fuck about him?” Vassago comments, drily.

 

Hadrian shrugs. “I guess. I like him. I thought I just liked messing with him, but I’m genuinely sad I’ve ruined our relationship, so maybe I just like him in general.”

 

“Why, Hadrian, that level of self introspection is pleasantly surprising, coming from you.”

 

“It’s a damn tragedy.” Hadrian sighs sadly. Why is it that he’s an all powerful demon prince of hell, and yet his weaknesses happen to be pretty boys who are low key megalomaniacs and a deathly allergy for prolonged introspection?

 

He shakes his head, frowning. “I just don’t know how to fix it, is the thing. How does one go about making a human happy? Buy him David Yurman?”

 

Vassago spares him an unimpressed look. “Is that really how you think you can go about fixing relational problems?” He asks, seriously.

 

Hadrian blinks blankly. That’s more or less how Death keeps all the women in his life happy, and it seems to work out pretty well for him.

 

Vassago rolls his eyes. “Listen. You already apologized, so the only thing you can do now is just… show how sorry you are in your actions.”

 

Hadrian’s brow furrows. “What does that mean?”

 

“Maybe you just need to be a little more forward with your intentions,” Vassago advises. “He probably doesn’t know how you feel about him - where he stands, and all that.”

 

Hadrian has a mental image of himself dressed up in a moe schoolgirl outfit, trailing after Tom being all, _‘Please notice me Senpai!!_ ”

 

The outfit would be a lot of fun - it’s been awhile since he went the sailor schoolgirl route - but the idea of trailing after anyone, spouting his feelings really loudly and devotedly, leaves a distinctly sour taste in his mouth.

 

Vassago might be right, though. Maybe it’s his turn to try a little harder?

 

_//_

 

_// NOTICE ME SENPAI // bigwave //_

 

_//_

 

This is why Hadrian is trying (and failing) to be as inconspicuous as possible, taking up roost at a coffee shop down the street from a certain orphanage, with an easy view of the front of the establishment. He doesn’t actually wear the sailor school girl outfit, although he contemplates it seriously for some time. Eventually he decides he doesn’t actually want to stand out as much as he usually does, and tries to go incognito in what he thinks is the current fashion.

 

He fails pretty spectacularly. This becomes obvious when the bell over the cafe door jingles slightly, and then a familiar form is standing in front of him, blocking his view.

 

“What are you doing.” Tom says, unimpressed.

 

Hadrian grins up at him. “Hi.”

 

Tom simply observes the demon for a moment. He honestly can’t tell whether Hadrian tried to fit in with the times, or if this was just another one of his weird fashion trends. He has on a remarkably hideous tropical print button down, a pair of khaki pants that Tom supposes could pass as normal, his trademark sneakers, and a large pair of sunglasses.

 

“What gave me away?”

 

“I have no idea what you’re supposed to be wearing.” Tom reveals, flatly.

 

Hadrian looks down at himself, pushing his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. He frowns sadly. “I knew I should have went with the Givenchy suit.” He laments.

 

It would have gone so well with the sunglasses.

 

Tom continues to look irritated. “Why are you here?”

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Hadrian counters, reaching for his mostly forgotten generic but bearable latte. He can’t believe this madness; no Starbucks? What a travesty.

 

“There’s no school.”

 

“Death can sneak up on you whether you’re in school or not.” Hadrian points out.

 

“There’s a war going on, if you haven’t noticed.”

 

“You think a human war would scare me?”

 

“I don’t plan on making any new… artifacts, any time soon.”

 

“Well, it’s not as if I’m pressuring you or anything.”

 

Tom’s brow twitches. Why does the demon always have such a nonchalant response for everything? “You’re avoiding the question.” Quite skillfully at that, he can begrudgingly admit.

 

Hadrian looks vaguely uncomfortable. It’s such an unfamiliar sight that Tom stares openly.

 

“I guess I wanted to see how you were doing,” the demon shrugs artlessly.

 

Tom merely stares at him, expression impassive.

 

“Well as you can see, I am alive and in one piece.” Tom replies blandly. “Thank you for the consideration.”

 

He moves to push past the demon and hopefully make his way as far as possible, but Hadrian catches his arm before he can get very far. Tom seizes up, before consciously forcing himself to relax again. Hadrian’s hand is so warm; he feels like he can feel the heat even through layers of clothing.

 

When he turns to the demon, he is surprised to find him smiling wanly. “You’re avoiding me, I get it,” he says, quietly.

 

Tom scowls on impulse. “ _I am not—_  “ He protests immediately.

 

“And I can’t exactly say I blame you, either.” Hadrian cuts him off with a shrug.

 

A high flush rises on his cheeks, despite his best efforts to remain unmoved. As always, Hadrian is enough to make his normally stoic and impassive self into a flustered mess with nothing but a few words. “I’m not—

 

“Anyway, I wanted to see if you wanted to get dinner with me,” Hadrian continues, offhandedly, cutting him off again. “But I understand if you don’t want to.”

 

Tom fights to appear uninterested, trying desperately to maintain a cool facade of vague indifference, when in reality his thoughts are all over the place.

 

It’s just - ... _dinner_?

 

He could have cursed this damn demon for once again making him question everything and stress out over tiny, meaningless details. What does that _mean_? Inviting him to dinner? His mind immediately jumps to ‘date’, but he squashes that thought down. He’s not about to make that same mistake twice. Dinner was innocuous enough; friends got dinner together, families ate dinner together; it really could mean anything. Except… Hadrian had gone out of his way to invite him, donning some atrocious outfit and sunglasses and transporting himself through time just to see him.

 

Tom didn’t know how to feel about that, in the same way he never knew how to feel about this damn creature, ever. He seemed to hate him and like him in equal parts. It doesn’t mean anything, he reminds himself. And more importantly, he shouldn’t _want_ it to mean anything. Hadrian should be nothing but yet another pawn in his chess game to world domination.

 

Hadrian is still staring at him adamantly, his hand wrapped around Tom’s arm.

 

He knows what he’s going to say - what he _wants_ to say; he may as well just resign himself to his fate.

 

Finally he sighs, long-suffering. “Where are we going?”

 

 

//

 

Hadrian apparates them in such a fashion it makes Tom wonder if he’s broken something in his head. His sense of up and down disappears within seconds, leaving him sick with vertigo. The world spins for what seems like a long eternity, before finally they are appearing somewhere that is decidedly not London.

 

Hadrian wastes no time transfiguring his outfit into something more his style. This style, of course, includes those mouth-watering, tight black pants. Tom pinches the bridge of his nose, and prays to Merlin for strength. He has on another one of those baggy jumpers he favors, and some kind of striped footwear that Tom is beginning to think are his favorite pair of shoes. He wears them often enough, at any rate. It speaks volumes that Tom actually has Hadrian’s entire wardrobe memorized. He refuses to own up to that though, so instead he turns his attention to everything _but_ the boy in question. Fortunately the world around them is more than enough to distract him.

 

“Where are we?” Tom looks around in blatant wonder. Hadrian smiles at the sight; the open look makes the boy suddenly seem his age again. Usually Tom is scowling like an old man, or wearing an impassive, aristocratic look. Hadrian doesn’t think he’s ever seen him as unguarded as he is in this moment; enchanted by the marvelous world of lights around him.

 

Hadrian refrains from pointing out most of those lights are neon signs blatantly soliciting topless strippers and sex.

 

“Chongqing, China,” Hadrian reveals, only somewhat helpful.

 

“China,” Tom repeats, still looking awed.

 

“Oh, yeah - it’s 2017 by the way.” He adds, offhand.

 

Tom’s eyes are very wide as he silently takes in the world around him. “That would make sense,” he says, faintly, watching an endless parade of what he believes to be automobiles crowd the road in front of them.

 

It’s all rather overwhelming - Tom is actually relieved when Hadrian stops their admittedly short trek through the city to pull them into a store of some kind.

 

His relief is short lived; it appears to be a restaurant, and he’s fairly sure most of the patrons are far from sober.

 

He looks back, staring at the sky outside the windows. “What time is it here?”

 

“Like three in the morning.”

 

It’s awfully crowded for three in the morning.

 

“The Chinese don’t stop partying until like five in the morning,” Hadrian discloses slyly. “Which is when they all stop clubbing end up in karaoke bars. It’s a grand time.”

 

“Is that what we’re doing?” He asks, a little apprehensively.

 

“Oh no,” Hadrian laughs. “I wouldn’t subject you to that ratchet hot mess. I just really wanted hotpot.”

 

Tom doesn’t know what that is, but he can infer it’s some kind of food. _Only Hadrian would travel through time just for dinner_ , he thinks, and he doesn’t know whether he feels uncharitable or fond.

 

He’s silent as Hadrian manages to flag down one of the workers; he’s surprised when Hadrian starts badgering her for a table in fluent Chinese. The girl looks unimpressed, but shoos them off to a table by the windows with a couple of menus anyway. As they walk over Tom supposes he shouldn’t be so surprised to know Hadrian can speak more than just English. Actually he feels vaguely silly - he’s an immortal demon, did Tom really think he wouldn’t be well traveled?

 

But that only makes Tom wonder what Hadrian knows - where he’s been, what he’s seen.

 

He definitely doesn’t act like it, but he’s probably an oracle of knowledge.

 

He ponders on this as Hadrian goes about ordering… whatever it is that they’re supposed to be eating. All Tom can tell from the surrounding patrons is that a large pot and a hell of a lot of drinking is involved. When was Hadrian born? Was he even ‘born’? What does it mean to be a Demon Prince of Hell? And what about the other Princes? Does he know them?

 

This isn’t the first time it’s occurred to Tom that he doesn’t know a damn single thing about Hadrian, but it’s definitely the first time the urge to know has surged up so strongly.

 

“Do you like spicy things?” Hadrian asks then, stirring him out of his thoughts.

 

Tom hesitates. “I don’t know.”

 

It’s not exactly as if he has an expansive palette or anything. The only real food he’s ever had has been at Hogwarts, and the fair tends to be mostly British staples. He’s certainly never tried any other, more exotic kinds of foods.

 

“Let’s not risk it then.” Hadrian decides, and continues to write on the little piece of paper their waitress handed to them.

 

Tom decides to leave it up to Hadrian to order for them, seeing as though he doesn’t even know where they are, what they’re eating, or how they’re supposed to eat it.

 

Hadrian discovers that last one with nothing short of bewilderment.

 

“...You don’t know how to use chopsticks?” He repeats, blankly.

 

Tom scowls, feeling oddly defensive. “When would I have learned?”

 

“Oh that’s true.” Hadrian concurs easily enough.

 

He spends the rest of the time they’re waiting for their food attempting to teach Tom how to use these strange metal prongs. It’s unfortunate timing, because he had really wanted to use the opportunity to find a way to subtly ask Hadrian about his past, but it’s still necessary considering he needs to know how to use them if he wants to eat at all. He’s a pretty awful teacher, but Tom is dexterous and a fast learner, so he learns anyhow. Just in time for their food, too, which is served incredibly raw.

 

He stares at it, before connecting the dots.

 

Hadrian starts plucking the vegetables off the plate. “You put the stuff that takes longer to cook in first.”

 

“This is a restaurant where you have to cook your own food?” He asks, perplexed. “Isn’t the point of going to a restaurant that you don’t have to cook the food?

 

“It’s the experience.” Hadrian insists, as he continues to drop things into their pot of boiling water in a pattern that doesn’t make any sense to Tom. “It’s part of the culture here - and in most Asian countries. Really I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be doing this while shit-faced drunk, but I’m not really in the mood for alcohol.”

 

Tom ignores most of that, watching Hadrian carefully. “When did you discover it?”

 

“The obligatory alcohol?” Hadrian asks, blinking. “Well, there was a very bad encounter with an entire bottle of mango-flavored sochu --

 

“Not that,” Tom rolls his eyes. “When did you come here and discover this delicacy?”

 

Hadrian pauses to consider this, leaning back in his seat to let everything cook in the giant pot between them. “Well, fairly recently I suppose. Of course, ‘recently’ is relative.”

 

“What’s recently, then?” Tom presses.

 

Hadrian doesn’t answer immediately, moving to take a drink from his coca cola. Or at least, he said it was coca cola - it didn’t look like any cola Tom had ever seen, and the waitress handed it to him in a glass, not the usual iconic bottle. But he supposes a lot changes in a century of time, soda bottles included. “To be honest, I found humanity pretty boring up until about… the invention of disco, I would say. So the nineteen-seventies? Or maybe the eighties?”

 

Tom stares at him in shock. “What did you do for the rest of time?”

 

Hadrian shrugs. “As a demon, I was summoned more during the earlier centuries, so I suppose technically I had more to do - but humans were so boring back then, and their assassination techniques were positively pedantic.”

 

“I had no respect for humanity then,” Hadrian confides, quietly, as he toys with his straw. “They were just… creatures that lived on Earth. I never cared to get into their affairs. Everything about them just seemed so uninteresting and uncreative.”

 

Hadrian looks up then, grinning. “I’m the youngest, you know.”

 

“I know.” Tom agrees drily, because he’s read the _Ars Goetia_ front to back, and that at least is something he knows about the demon.

 

“Well, what I mean to say is that, unlike my brothers, I wasn’t around for all of human history - or even for most of it, really. At some point, the majority of my brothers all got bored of humanity, and stopped coming to Earth. But they’ve also had far longer for the novelty to wear off.”

 

“The other Princes?” He clarifies.

 

“Yeah.” Hadrian nods, as he leans over to prod the pieces of meat floating in their broth. “They don’t really leave Hell much. And they _definitely_ don’t take contracts anymore.”

 

Tom digests this in silence.

 

‘“It’s a good thing I summoned you, then, and not King Bael.” He says, faintly, still in awe at how easily his whole plan for immortality could have failed.

 

Hadrian snorts under his breath. He shakes his head rapidly, snickering. “It’s a very good thing indeed.” Is all he has to say about the first prince.

 

There’s a quiet lull in their conversation as Hadrian deems the food edible, and then starts grabbing things out of the soup with no finesse whatsoever. As far as English purebloods - and even English muggles - are concerned, it looked utterly barbaric. But Hadrian was right, he was in a different place now, so obviously social etiquette would be different.

 

“So what changed your mind?” Tom asks, after he’s finished his first serving and decided he likes this hotpot thing.

 

Hadrian is staring at the pot with narrowed eyes, eying the murky waters for another scallop. “What?” He replies, distracted.

 

“About humanity,” Tom clarifies, watching him pluck something out of the pot with amusement. The way his eyes grow wide with concentration and his teeth bite into his bottom lip make him think of a cat, just waiting to pounce on its prey. Hadrian would make a great cat, he thinks, ridiculously. He has an image of Hadrian wearing cat ears and has to quickly think of something else.

 

“Oh.” Hadrian seems to take the question seriously now that he’s successfully claimed his prize, looking thoughtful as he taps his chin.

 

“The internet?” He throws out, as if Tom knows what that means. “No… it was probably before that. Although I stand by my conviction that the internet is singularly the greatest invention humanity has ever made - second only to Star Wars.”

 

“Humanity only really started doing things I would consider interesting around the end of the twentieth century,” Hadrian explains. “You know they’ve been to the moon?”

 

“Really?” Tom’s eyes widen. That sounds impossible. “Muggles, you mean?”

 

“Err - yeah, I guess so. We don’t really make the distinction between humans who can use magic and humans who can’t.” Hadrian smiles secretively. “Muggles will make a kind of magic of their own, you know.”

 

Tom frowns, not understanding what he means by that.

 

However, he tables that topic in favor of his current line of questioning. “So, you mean to say you changed your mind because you thought humans were interesting?”

 

“Well, yeah. Why would I ever spend so much time on Earth otherwise?”

 

“You spend a lot of time on Earth, then?” Tom narrows his eyes speculatively.

 

“Oh, sure.” Hadrian replies, as he makes some weird concoction of rice and sauces and soup on his plate. “I’m very fond of the Bubble Era, but for the most part I prefer to be in this time, which is my ‘present’ you could say.”

 

That just brings forth a wellspring of questions.

 

So, this is Hadrian’s ‘present time’? It was odd to think that Hadrian could actually exist in one specific time - as opposed to sort of existing in a place where time doesn’t exist.

 

“But you can travel through time,” Tom points out. “So couldn’t you just as easily decide to live a hundred years from now?”

 

“Ah, that. Well, even we demons have to follow some rules, you know. We’re not exempt from the forces of the universe. The old man is pretty adamant that we follow the rules of Time. So technically we can, but nothing is rarely worth pissing him off that much.”

 

Tom tries to imagine an angry Lucifer - he had assumed the being would be in a perpetual state of anger, so he can’t really imagine him being _angrier._

 

“I see,” Tom says slowly, as his mind whirls to process all of this.

 

He has long finished, but finally Hadrian appears to have satisfied his bottomless stomach now as well. The wait staff seem very eager to kick them - and everyone else in here - out as soon as possible. Hadrian just hands the waitress a thick, small black card, and she comes back with a receipt. Tom is vaguely annoyed to realize Hadrian just paid for them, before deciding he shouldn’t feel bad since Hadrian was the one who dragged him all the way out here anyway.

 

For some reason, despite knowing more about the demon and sitting right beside him he feels even farther than usual. Maybe because the more he learns, the more he realizes how large the chasm that divides them is.

 

“So, is there anything else you wanted to know?” Hadrian asks, as he signs his signature with a flourish. Tom notices he signs it as _Prince Hadrian_ , with a big heart at the end. He despairs silently.

 

Hadrian is the worst, he thinks, but it comes out with far more fondness than he’d like.

 

“I’m not entirely sure,” Tom admits; he has far too many questions, and far too little time to ask them.

 

Hadrian doesn’t reply, and when Tom looks over he looks to be in deep thought.

 

This is, of course, the moment where Hadrian turns to consider him seriously, before asking; “Well, have I ever told you about my gay jesus theory?”

 

_//_

 

_// love ya // pure 100% //_

 

_//_

 

So Hadrian thinks they’re friends again. In that not-friends way they already were before. So pretty much, Hadrian has returned to annoying the shit out of Tom whenever he can get away with it, and Tom has returned to suffering through his presence in silence.

He spends a lot of time away from Earth, just the same.

He just—he feels kind of bad. And he doesn’t even know why.

 

And in his defense, Tom doesn’t call him back, either.

But something about their relationship has changed, and he’s not sure how it happened, so he doesn’t know how to fix it. Honestly, he’s more worried over the fact he cares that much about their relationship at all. Tom is a human. He might be immortal, or at least marginally immortal, but there’s more separating demons from humans than that. Hadrian should know better than to get too close.

Then again, Hadrian should know better in regards to a lot of things; he should know better than to get blackout drunk before thirsty Thursday, he should know better than to entrust Barbatos with his tax returns; he should know better than to get into petty arguments on a platform that only allows for 140 characters max; send nudes on snapchat while drunk, send _anything_ on snapchat while drunk, cook with the lights off, sing karaoke of any kind… there are a lot of things he shouldn't do that he does anyway. And he should definitely know better than to care for a human. Humans were not pets.

 

If he wanted a pet he was better off getting a cat - or maybe just a fish. Although from the way Vassago talks about it that raising fish is a deceptively difficult endeavor, so maybe not.

 

Anyway, Vassago has his fish; Furfur has his endless obsession with buying mansions and decorating them only to leave them empty for all of time; and as far as Hadrian knows Barbatos has no hobbies and spends all of his time doing paperwork or getting angry at people on Slack. Or maybe that’s a hobby in and of itself? Either way Hadrian doesn’t have anger management issues, so he decides he needs to find a hobby; preferably one that doesn’t involve a lot of passive aggressive emails.

 

“I need a hobby,” Hadrian declares, as he is once again avoiding all his problems at Furfur’s mansion.

 

Avoiding all his problems with Furfur and an entire room full of confectionaries, because Furfur knows how much he loves processed sugar, so why not just fill a whole room in one of the mansions he never uses with it? Hadrian thinks it’s an excellent idea. It might take him a while to manage to eat nine-hundred square feet of red velvet cake, but damn if he won’t try anyhow.

 

Furfur looks appalled. “If the next word out of your mouth is knitting --

 

“I’m shit at knitting,” Hadrian dismisses, snorting. “Anyway I want a mentally consuming hobby - I don’t want something I can do and still have enough presence of mind to get overly invested in The Bachelor.”

 

Furfur frowns. “So - sports?”

 

Hadrian looks positively affronted. “What am I, a peasant?”

 

Furfur shrugs. “I’m just saying, you would make a great looking footie player; you really have the body for it.” He remarks, as he elegantly sprawls himself over one of his many chaise lounges decorating his lavish sitting room.

 

Hadrian frowns from his perch on the chaise opposite. “I can’t tell if you’re insulting me, or the entire sport of soccer.”

 

“You’ve had hobbies before,” Furfur points out, ignoring his comment. “Whatever happened to those?”

 

Hadrian shrugs, as he reaches blindly for the gilded gold table between them, and the tray of macarons atop it. He bites into it with his eyes closed; pistachio. “Death, Chaos and Calamity don’t really count as hobbies.”

 

“I didn’t mean _those_ ,” Furfur guffaws, dramatically. “I remember when you were obsessed with cosplaying. Whatever happened to that?”

 

“I do love crossdressing,” Hadrian admits. “But it’s too much work and everyone is so judgmental.”

 

Furfur sighs dreamily. “I do miss those days,” he reminisces. “You always did look far better as a girl.”

 

Hadrian is not insulted in the least, popping the rest of his macaron into his mouth with a satisfied grin. “This is true,” he concurs, seriously. “But I don’t really know if crossdressing can really count as a hobby, unless you’re trying to run a fashion blog or get into drag.”

 

“Why don’t you do either of those?” Furfur suggests.

 

“That’s too _much_ work.”

 

“I’m running out of ideas here,” Furfur whines, rolling over to reach for a macaron of his own. He changes track halfway, moving for a custard tart instead.

 

Suddenly he pauses. Hadrian looks over at him curiously. Furfur meets his gaze over their elaborate spread of confectioneries, eyes lighting up. “How about baking?”

 

Hadrian blinks.

 

“Combine your love of girl’s clothing and your obsession with fame and start a baking blog.” Furfur suggests, looking absolutely enamored at the prospect. “Better yet, start your career as a Food Network star. I always love those. Listen Hadrian, you’re forever trapped in a body that could still pass as a thirteen year-old girl’s, so you might as well make the most of it.”

 

The dark-haired demon looks vaguely skeptical. “I can’t bake.” He points out.

 

“You’ll learn.” Furfur retorts, not sounding worried in the least, even though Hadrian’s never even touched a stove in his life. “We can get Duke Astoroth to teach you. He’s a world renowned chef, you know. I’m pretty sure he disguised himself as a human just to prove his worth by beating Bobby Flay.”

 

Hadrian debates this in his head, giving a noncommittal hum of indecisiveness. He tries to imagine the terrifying, enormous bulk of his older brother Astoroth, somehow managing to putter about in a kitchen despite his size.

 

“Hadrian, think of the outfits.” He urges when Hadrian doesn’t reply, deadly serious. “Think of the _cake._ You could make your own tiramisu.”

 

Hadrian’s breath catches as his eyes go very wide. By god, Furfur is right. He thinks he’s found his calling. Well, his other calling. He’s pretty sure he was created to cause chaos and calamity, but whatever, who says he can’t also be a fabulous moe baking idol?

 

So he considers the idea with a seriousness it absolutely does not deserve.

 

Honestly, he’s done far worse.

 

//

 

Tom feels like he’s spent the dragging summer months doing nothing but sitting around thinking about Hadrian. It’s awful.

 

Tom hates that demon, for a lot of reasons.

 

Chiefly, Tom does not like having feelings, and Hadrian makes him have a lot of them. About a lot of things, not all of them superficial or cosmetic, unfortunately.

 

It’s true he spends far too much time deeply considering the exact shade of Hadrian’s eyes, but he spends an equal amount of time remembering the way he purses his lips in a futile attempt to stop himself from laughing, before ultimately ducking his head and laughing himself into tears—   normally at Tom’s expense. Tom could spend days waxing poetry on Hadrian’s laugh; it is quite possibly the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. It’s part of what he loves hates about the demon, how he can be a creature of nothing but tempting power and darkness, and yet everything about him is still so bright and brilliant. He likes Hadrian as a person, is the problem. It would be so much simpler if he was simply attracted to the demon’s looks, but no, he had to go and fall face first in love with him instead.

 

At any rate, he has a lot of feelings over Hadrian’s _everything_ — body, smile, awful personality. But there’s more to covet than that. There’s a dark obsession deep within him at the thought of the endless, incomprehensible power at the demon’s fingertips. He’s never met a creature with the amount of power the demon has. He desires it like nothing he’s ever wanted before. Tom is a collector of fine things; Hadrian would be the crowning jewel of his ultimate empire, a creature of such beauty and power Tom could never let him be with anyone else. Hadrian uses his powers fancifully and arbitrarily, often expending a lot of energy on incredibly useless things, but Tom can only imagine what he would be like if he focused his efforts on more worthy endeavors. What _Tom_ could do with that kind of power.

 

Perhaps it’s really not so strange that Tom desires the demon so strongly; he is everything Tom wants. And Merlin, does Tom _want._

 

He wants the demon’s smile as much as he wants his magic.

 

But he can’t _have_ him.

 

Hence, the hatred and frustration.

 

Hadrian may just be perfection wrapped up in a handsome smile, but he was still forever the flawless jewel that Tom could never have. It frustrated him endlessly, when he thought about himself in comparison to the demon. Comparing yourself to a demon was always a bad idea, but it was all too damn easy to line them both up and see his own personal shortcomings. He looked at Hadrian, then at himself, and found himself lacking. And that only made him crave the demon more.

 

It made him wish he’d never met him; never extended his hand; never let the demon into his life so conclusively. He hadn’t realized what a pain it would be to get him out.

 

Worse— he didn’t even _want_ to.

 

When Hadrian had shown up out of the blue, wearing the most unsightly ensemble Tom has seen to date, dropping out of the ether to once more ruin Tom’s life— he should have been angry. He should have kept a distance. He should have brushed the demon off.

 

Instead, he follows him through time and space to a place more than half a century in the future, on the opposite side of the planet, full of loud and unruly drunks and a lot of people speaking Chinese.

 

Tom sighs, rising slowly from his position behind his desk, flopping rather ungracefully onto his bed.

 

He should have said no.

 

He should have walked away.

 

Because now— now all he could do was think himself deeper and deeper into this stupid, painful pit of feelings. He would never be able to forget how Hadrian looked underneath those colorful bursts of light; he would never forget the feeling of looking up into a steel empire of smoke and neon and feeling such an overwhelming, mystical feeling of adventure. Even more impressing and inspiring than his very first trip to Diagon Alley, if he’s being honest. It was like discovering magic all over again. It’s how he always felt around Hadrian, magnified tenfold by the reality of being somewhere so completely removed from everything he’d ever known. Hadrian made him excited. He made him actually look towards the future with something more than cold ambition. When Tom was with Hadrian, the whole damn world was brighter; everything was interesting, even a stupid trip to Hogsmeade; he could feel himself grounded in a moment, _enjoying_ a moment, in a way he never had before.

 

Fuck, maybe he really should just start moonlighting as a dramatic, angsty love poet. At this rate, he could fill a whole book, and his feelings didn’t seem to be stopping. Hadrian made his whole life light up, like he’d been blind or something, or like he’d been looking at everything wrong. He barreled his way into Tom’s life and made all the thoughts fly out of his head.

 

“God damn it,” he curses under his breath, into the still air of his room.

 

He wants Hadrian. He wants to be the reason Hadrian finds humanity so interesting; he wants to be the reason he sticks around. He wants to make Hadrian stay, somehow.

 

He doesn’t actually know if he’s capable of any of that, but he does know what he _can_ do.

 

He pulls out a ring from his pocket, bringing it up to brush against his lips with a thoughtful expression. When he looks down at it, it glitters ominously in the wan afternoon light.

 

Perhaps it’s finally time to act on his plan.

 

_//_

 

_// idol step // big wave //_

 

_//_

 

So Hadrian has a lot of feelings these days, and there are only so many hours he can distract himself waiting for cats in _neko atsume_ before he gives up and starts thinking about feelings again. Fortunately he manages to push his feelings aside in favor of his cooking career. True to his word, Duke Astoroth is a world-class patisserie extraordinaire; he also happens to be a miraculously patient demon Prince, so despite Hadrian’s many unfortunate kitchen mishaps, he learns how to bake anyhow. Now he can go on pinterest and finally start trying all those ridiculous recipes he keeps pinning onto his truly absurd amount of boards. He always thought putting cakes in mason jars was sort of stupid, but after seeing about a thousand of them they’ve really started to grow on him.

 

So Hadrian utilizes his amassed social media empire to become the most subscribed cooking streamer on youtube— he’s not entirely sure if it’s because of the food, his handsome guest-host brothers that basically just sit there and eat everything and don’t help at all, or the fact his outfits are always flawless and far too moe for real life. Most likely some combination of all of the above. He’s fairly sure his following is all enamored young girls and hentai dudes, but whatever, he has real life fans okay. He’s totally famous.

 

He hates to admit it, but sometimes Furfur comes up with the best ideas.

 

And yet, no matter how many times he flounces around in a Liz Lisa dress, no matter how many pinterest-inspired cupcakes he bakes— he still spends basically all his time thinking about Tom.

 

It’s infuriating. He’s instafamous and an idol! If he joined a k-pop group, he could more or less rule the world! He’s got things he needs to do that don’t revolve around essentially stalking a seventeen year-old human boy. A very attractive human boy. But still, he’s just a human; he’s nothing special.

 

Although considering his ambitious plans for himself and the world at large, Hadrian has no doubt he’ll end up being someone impressive. Not Kanye West levels, but solidly above P Diddy.

 

He feels far too self aware about his own feelings, and all this self-exploration just means he still feels a little awkward and nervous when Tom summons him out of the blue one fine summer morning, after months of radio silence. At the very least, they had already finished filming today’s episode and he had managed to slip out of this episodes get up— yet another lolita frock in lace and checkered yellow— and back into something more moderate before coming here. As much as he loves crossdressing, he has a feeling it might make things even worse right now.

 

“Hey,” Hadrian drawls awkwardly, with a somewhat nervous smile. “Long time no see, huh?”

 

“It’s been a quiet, pleasant few months, yes.” Tom agrees drily, as he leans against the side of the building they’re standing beside.

 

Hadrian’s not all that sure where they are, but then, he’s not that familiar with mid-twentieth century England.

 

The human digs into his pocket, before revealing a vaguely familiar complimentary restaurant breath mint, that at some point he’d thrown at Hadrian’s face, but then promptly had returned to him. “This is getting a bit stale, by the way.” He waves it in the air with a sardonic look. “At this rate it’ll disintegrate before I need you again.”

 

Hadrian laughs sheepishly. “Fair point.” He concedes, before rummaging in his own pocket. “Here. You can have this.”

 

He tosses something slim and shiny at Tom. The wizard catches it with a start, cradling it gently in his hands. It feels quite light, but it’s made of metal and glass. He’s seen Hadrian use it multiple times.

 

“What is this?” He asks, as he’s never actually indulged in that particular curiosity before.

 

“A Note 7.” Hadrian replies. “Don’t worry about charging it, it’s powered by demon magic. But it might arbitrarily explode anyway.”

 

“What?” Tom reels back, holding it at arm’s length.

 

“I’m kidding.” Hadrian grins cheekily. “Kind of.”

 

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” He asks, warily.

 

Hadrian shrugs. “I got a Pixel last week, so I don't need it anymore.”

 

He’s about to protest again on principle, but then Hadrian suddenly moves closer, wrapping his hands around Tom’s. His breath hitches, and he stays very still as the demon turns it on and starts showing him how to use it.

 

“—I’m under Hadrian; don’t even _think_ about calling anyone else on that list, you hear?”

 

Tom’s eyes widen when they pass _‘The Old Man’_. “Right.” He swallows thickly, a bit fearful. Best not to even think about just who that might be.

 

“—And this is how you call. If I don’t answer, you press this button, and then you can just send me a text. I’d tell you snapchat is preferred but let’s just keep it easy.” Hadrian prattles on, heedless of Tom’s uncomfortableness. “I guess if you’re really bored you can play my games.  But touch my Kardashian app and die.”

 

Tom has no intentions of doing any of that.

 

“This is a great responsibility I’m handing over to you, young Padawan.” Hadrian says gravely, once he’s finished overwhelming Tom with a bunch of nonsense he doesn’t need to know. “The power of google and the internet is now in your hands. Use it wisely. With great power comes great responsibility - beware of all the cats.”

 

“W—Why are you even giving this to me, then?” He asks, rather bewildered and still a bit lost.

 

“Because despite the fact that you’re okay living in the tragedy that is the 1940’s, I really can’t stand not being able to just snap you whenever I want your attention.”

 

“It’s also easier to get a hold of me this way.” Hadrian adds, to Tom’s blank stare of incomprehension.

 

“I suppose it’s better than a breath mint.” Tom admits, pocketing the phone.

 

“That’s top of the line!” Hadrian retorts, indignant. “Don’t be fooled by the random, spontaneous combustion, that’s a great phone.”

 

“I’m not even sure what point you’re trying to make with that.” Tom sighs. “At any rate, now that you’re here we may as well get started.”

 

“Get started?” Hadrian asks with interest, as he follows Tom down the street.

 

“Yes.” Tom replies, tersely. “I have need of your services today.”

 

Hadrian perks up clearly. “I see. So you’ve actually planned it out this time, then?” He notes, teasingly.

 

“Oh, I’ve been planning this for a long time.” Tom returns, darkly.

 

Hadrian doesn’t know where they’re going, and Tom is technically not allowed to apparate without a license— which he has never bothered to get, despite being perfectly capable of apparating— so they take London’s public transportation. Or what’s left of it. Getting anywhere in the war torn city is a struggle; haggard humans pass them darting wary, fearful looks around them, as if expecting the klaxon sirens to go off at any moment. None of the shops are open; the tube is more a bomb shelter than a metro, and the city looks gloomier than usual, which was saying something, because Hadrian always found London rather gloomy.

 

“Is it really safe to go out like this?” Hadrian wonders aloud, squinting into the sky.

 

“We don’t have much choice, do we?” Tom returns, darkly. Then he snorts. “And are you seriously that concerned over your safety?”

 

“Well, no.” Hadrian answers, deadpan. “War means nothing to me. I could stop it all in a second. Who knows— maybe I’ll save this whole city next time there’s an air raid just to piss of Death.”

 

Tom turns to him thoughtfully. “Do you two not get along?” He asks, casually, although his eyes are penetrating.

 

Hadrian laughs, perhaps a bit nervously. “Oh, you know, sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.” He hedges evasively, mainly because he doesn’t know how to explain his relationship with Death, ever.

 

Tom merely nods, still turning Hadrian’s prior words over in his head. The Prince of Chaos and Calamity— it was really no stretch that he could _stop_ all that chaos and calamity with the same ease in which he started it. Again, an intense flare of hunger lit in his stomach again, as he turned possessive eyes towards the oblivious demon by his side, poking away at that thing he calls a telephone.

 

“Where are we going, anyway?” He asks eventually, looking up.

 

“Have you no sense of patience?” Tom replies drily.

 

Hadrian scoffs. “I’m the Prince of chaos and calamity, thank you, not patience and virtue.” He retorts by way of answer.

 

Tom merely shakes his head. “You’ll know soon enough,” he says ambiguously, a darkness to his tone that makes Hadrian look up with interest.

 

“Fine, fine,” he caves too easily, but quite honestly he doesn’t really care where they’re going. He just wanted to say _something_ to fill that small bubble of silence.

 

Hadrian is dismayed to realize he and Tom were definitely not the same, despite his best efforts. Something felt… not right, with them. There was a weird tension between them, as if they both had many things they’d prefer to leave unsaid. He wonders if Tom is still mad at him. Then he remembers Vassago’s advice, and resigns himself to a long uphill battle ahead of him. Fuck, if he knew sleeping with that blonde moron was going to cause him so much trouble, he wouldn’t have bothered— quite honestly, despite his reputation he wasn’t actually all that big of a slut. Usually he thought sex wasn’t really worth the effort, although it was true he was always down for a fuck when it more or less just fell into his lap.

 

Damn it, thinking about sex right now was not going to help anything.

 

Tom watches the demon from the corner of his eye, as the boy pulls a face, before shaking his head, looking angry over something. Hadrian is quite the expressive creature, surprisingly, and Tom wishes he knew what he was thinking right now. It looked like whatever was currently entertaining him was interesting— or at the very least, it looked like it would perhaps give him some insight into the bewildering mind of Prince Hadrian, the seventy-third (and most maddeningly difficult) of the demon princes. No, what would _really_ give Tom some insight into Hadrian’s true character would be the ability to magically understand all of his stupid reference that never make any sense. He always finds himself forever curious when it comes to Hadrian and all the bewildering and insensible shit he says. Hadrian is as fascinating as he is exasperating, he has to admit. Guessing his next move is just as impossible as guessing what he’s thinking about.

 

Meanwhile, Hadrian spends their walk to— ...well, wherever, they’re going— wondering what the hell he’s supposed to say right now.

 

Hadrian is actually incredibly good at small talk, in the same way he’s good at people in general.

 

But the majority of his go-to conversation starters are completely useless right now. ‘Hey, have you seen the new season of _Master of None_ yet?’ or, ‘Dude, check out this dog gif I found on reddit!’ and if he’s stuck in an elevator for a particularly long time, ‘can you believe they’re trying to shut pornhub down— what madness is this?’ or his current favorite; ‘can I get you a covfefe with that?’

 

So now he’s stuck here in this heavy silence, wondering what he’s supposed to say instead. Great weather we’re having? Except it’s a typical ungodly awful London afternoon. It’s such a nice day out? But then there’s the constant threat of carpet bombing, so Hadrian isn’t entirely sure how true that really is.

 

Finally, he manages to feebly come up with; “...We’re not walking all the way there, are we?”

 

Tom rolls his eyes. “Of course not.”

 

He points to something a few blocks down. Hadrian realizes with surprise that it’s a bus stop. Honestly he’s impressed with the public transportation system of the era for even having busses at all.

 

Hadrian smiles slightly, tapping his chin. “Hmm… so we’re going somewhere on a bus, huh? It’s not Disney Land is it?”

 

“Hadrian, seriously.” Tom retorts, in a way that is most certainly reprimanding but ends up fond anyhow.

 

“Sorry, sorry.” Hadrian returns, not looking particularly apologetic. “Not Disney Land then? I don’t blame you, it’s gotten far too pretentious and overpriced.”

 

“It’s definitely not Disney Land— and for the record, I know what that is.” Tom replies drily as they blend into the crowd waiting for the bus.

 

“Do you?” Hadrian says, thrilled.

 

“I know what Disney is.” Tom shrugs. “And I heard they were planning on making some kind of amusement park for it.”

 

Hadrian looks positively delighted. “Tom, look! We have something in common!”

 

Tom turns back to him look at him, a slight smirk on his face. “Well don’t get too ahead of yourself now.”

 

Hadrian grins wider, a large swell of relief releasing all the tension in his shoulders. Finally, they’re starting to feel like normal again. “So, Disney Land is out.” He muses, as they board the bus. “Planet Hoth? The Death Star? Dagobah?”

 

“Are you just intentionally listing places I don’t know?”

 

Hadrian doesn’t look ashamed in the least. “These are definitely places you need to know, Tom.” He says, seriously, which means he’s not being serious at all.

 

Tom scoffs, picking out a spot for them in the back. “I bet they’re not even real.” He says, as he leans back in his chair.

 

Hadrian merely shakes his head with a sigh. “That is completely besides the point. One day, you’ll understand.”

 

“How many times have I told you, I would prefer to live in ignorance?”

 

Hadrian looks affronted. “Don’t think I’ll let you get away with this travesty,” he warns. “You’ll watch Star Wars whether you want to or not. Even if I have to drag you down to hell and tie you to a chair.”

 

“That sounds excessive.”

 

Hadrian rolls his eyes, tucked into the seat next to Tom with a blinding grin that’s lethal at point blank range. “It’s like you don’t even know me.” Hadrian replies— he’s not even seriously following their current conversation, he’s just pleased that they’re finally talking like normal again.

 

“That’s true— everything about you is excessive.”

 

Hadrian beams at him. “Thank you.” He says, sincerely.

 

“That wasn’t a compliment.” Tom points out.

 

If anything, that only seems to make the demon happier. “I know.”

 

//

 

The bus drops them off in a small, sleepy town at the base of a hill. Hadrian is less than impressed with it. He’s always been more of a city person than a country guy though, so he’s perhaps a bit biased. From Tom’s displeased sneer of disgust, he imagines the boy is the same. The boy had gotten progressively quieter and moodier as they drove farther away from London, and closer to their destination— still undisclosed.

 

He’s just following the boy off the bus when his phone goes off.

 

He takes it out in surprise— his brothers don’t text him unless under dire circumstances— but it’s not a text at all. It’s not even yet another notification after his stellar insta post from earlier. It’s an email. _Who the hell sends emails anymore?_ He thinks, annoyed. If this is Kimaris forwarding yet another of his stupid self-help newsletters, Hadrian will be the first person to ever perform the _One Thousand Years of Death Jutsu_ in real life.

 

To his absolute delight, it is not his brother. Twitter has wrote to tell him that, after much deliberation, his account is no longer suspended. Hadrian could not be more thrilled to hear it.

 

“Hadrian!”

 

The demon snaps his head up at the commanding voice, suddenly all but wrenched to his right.

 

He blinks with wide eyes as a military truck blares its horn in front of him, before zooming past them.

 

“Does that guy know how to follow a damn speed limit?” He says with amazement, even though he knows it’s a lost cause. No one follows speed limits in war, he knows that from experience.

 

“Do you know how to watch where you’re going?” Tom retorts, angrily. “Honestly! That could have— “ He pauses, as if he just remembered that Hadrian couldn’t actually die, and even if he could getting run over by a truck was not even going to come close to injuring him. “Been a real pain to deal with.” He ends lamely, because at least that is true. Dealing with muggles is always a pain, especially when having to explain the unexplainable— like a boy who should be dead casually getting back up again to return to his stupid phone game.

 

Hadrian grins up at him sheepishly. “Sorry.” He doesn’t look apologetic in the least. “I just got notified that my Twitter account is no longer banned!”

 

“Do I even want to know what that means?” Tom sighs.

 

“Probably not.” Hadrian grins wider, as Tom tugs him away from the road. He takes a second to debate his comeback status, before returning his attention to the matter at hand. “So are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

 

There’s a long, unbroken silence where Tom doesn’t answer, simply leading them through town, and afterward, a winding pass marked only with a stately mailbox.

 

Tom tugs him by the hand to turn down the driveway and past a thicket of foliage. Hadrian observes all this in the endless silence, wondering why the moment seems to get progressively heavier the longer Tom goes without answering. He’s been rather tight-lipped about this whole event; Hadrian isn’t even entirely sure why they’re here. Tom had simply said he needed his services, which really could mean anything.

 

The trees part to reveal an imposing iron gate,a vast and well-manicured lawn, and beyond that, a vast and well-manicured mansion. Finally, Tom comes to a stop, the gates looming over them. Hadrian turns to him curiously. Tom is not looking at him, his entire, intense focus fixated on the sight before them.

 

“Tom?” Hadrian prods, when still no answer is forthcoming. “Where are we?”

 

“This is my father’s house.” He reveals, tone inscrutable.

 

Hadrian stares at his back in surprise. He can’t read anything in Tom’s voice, and he doubts his expression would be all that more forthcoming either. Still, Tom has never discussed his parents, but Hadrian knew he lived in an orphanage, so he could infer that Tom and his parents were… estranged, to say the least.

 

“Your father’s alive?” He asks, surprised.

 

At this, Tom turns around. In the cool shadow beneath the trees, his eyes almost look crimson. There is nothing to be found on his face but anger.

 

“Not for very long.” And then he turns back around, whipping out his wand to unlock the mighty metal chains keeping the gate shut.

 

Hadrian is stunned, and not entirely sure what to make of this.

 

 _This_ is what they’re doing? Turning his old man into a horcrux?

 

He doesn’t really know how to feel, much less how to voice his own emotions aloud in a way that could actually convey them coherently, so he settles for the next best thing; he puts it on twitter. He hasn’t been on twitter in awhile, mainly because he’s been banned so many damn times now, so this is rather exciting. Quite honestly he couldn’t think of anything better for his return to Twitter. He's so excited he even changes his twitter handle. 

 

@OG Starboy [18:34]: 

_So i guess i’m on a date with bae to murder his father???_

 

Hadrian supposes he’s done far worse.

 

He’s also not sure if this counts as a date, even though this is the closest they’ve been in a while, and despite the fact that Hadrian literally cannot die, Tom still held him close even though neither of them were in any danger of getting hit by a bus. It kind of seems like it, honestly. They have that weird date tension thing going on, or maybe Hadrian’s just projecting. Still though, Hadrian looks down where the boy is still holding his hand. He hasn’t let go since he pulled Hadrian out of the road. Should he comment on that? Is this the time to talk about things? Is it an accident??? _Should he ignore it???_

 

Before he works himself up into a frenzy worthy of a tumblr meme, Tom is tugging him up the hill to where a stately mansion resides atop sprawling manicured lawns.

 

“So… you’re old man lives there?” Hadrian asks, even though they both obviously no the answer. But the silence is really getting to him. He glances back down at their joined hands, before quickly looking back up at Tom.

 

“Yes,” Tom replies darkly.

 

Yeah, Hadrian could see why he’d be pissed as hell; his old man was enjoying himself in his luxuries while Tom grew up in an orphanage. Hadrian’s actually a little angry on Tom’s behalf.

 

“I’m assuming you brought me here for more than just sharing an intimate experience,” Hadrian adds drily. “Do you have the item you want to house the soul in?”

 

Tom procures a very familiar ring from his pocket.

 

Hadrian seizes his way through a coughing fit, pulling away from Tom and turning his face so the boy can’t see. He feels like he’s about to cough up a lung, but at the very least it was a good opportunity to casually pull his hand away from Tom’s without making a big scene of it. Honestly, it’s just hand holding. Hadrian is getting way too worked up about it right now.

 

Tom frowns at him, still holding the ring aloft. “What?”

 

Hadrian’s shoulders shake slightly, but he manages to mostly compose himself. “The irony,” he laments, wiping tears from his eyes. “Oh god, it’s nothing, really. Sorry, let’s continue.”

 

Who would have thought he’d see that old thing again.

 

They reach the front doors to the mansion. Hadrian is debating whether he should snapchat this or not— would it be insensitive to put this on his story? — when he notices Tom hasn’t reached for the door knob yet. The human hesitates for one damning moment, but it’s enough for Hadrian to come to the sobering realization that this is far more difficult for the boy than he’s letting on. Tom’s impassive anger is nothing but a ruse. Beneath it all, Hadrian knows there is a violent storm of emotions brewing beneath the surface; seventeen years of anger and fear and loneliness.

 

He does something very strange and out of character then; he slips his hand back into Tom’s larger one, squeezing tightly. He doesn’t look at the boy, just sort of leans close for a moment or two before he lets go.

 

Tom lets out a breath then, and opens the door.

 

//

 

@OG Starboy [19:45]: 

_Nothin like a little bloodshed to get your thirsty thursday started! #staythirsty_

 

It’s a good thing this isn’t a date, because it’s turned out spectacularly bad. To be fair, it started out pretty lackluster too, but the finale was markedly, impressively _bad_.

 

He supposes Tom had either dismissed or vastly underestimated how emotional killing his own father would be, and Hadrian is really, really bad at consoling people. Especially people like Tom, who like to pretend they don’t have feelings.

 

They entered the house probably looking like quite the sight— Tom dressed plainly but sharply in a crisp button down and slacks; Hadrian looking like a BTS member with his skinny jeans, sweet new kicks, and overly expensive yet totally unremarkable t-shirt. The old lady who answered the door looked blindsided to see them. Her expression immediately turned wary when she saw Tom. Tom’s expression was impossible to read; Hadrian fucking beamed at her and asked her about the weather.

 

Things went downhill from there.

 

Decorum forces the woman Hadrian assumes is Tom’s grandmother to begrudgingly escort them to the sitting room. It’s nice looking, if you like gaudy, ostentatious and inefficient furniture. Tom and Hadrian do not touch their tea. The room is dead silent. They wait so long Hadrian considers whipping out his phone and checking twitter, but then the door opens, revealing another old person and a man who looks… remarkably like Tom.

 

The tension is so heavy Hadrian is actually starting to feel awkward. The two Tom’s simply stare each other down.

 

“So, that woman actually had that spawn, did she?” The man finally breaks the silence, sneering down at his own features, mirrored on Tom’s face.

 

Tom’s expression is still wholly inscrutable.

 

Hadrian looks between the two parties, all but caught in a stare down.

 

Tom Riddle Senior gives Hadrian a once-over, before dismissing him entirely. Hadrian feels as if he should be offended, because he knows he’s hot as fuck, but it doesn’t seem worth it given the current circumstances. Then his eyes fix towards Tom again, full of disdain.

 

“You must be here for money, then.” Tom Riddle Senior deduces, sounding decidedly displeased.

 

The older man gives a momentous sigh, folding his arms. “I suppose a couple pounds couldn’t hurt. Mother, if you could please—

 

And then Hadrian is leaping back in record time, because Tom has just gutted his father like a fish and he literally just bought this shirt. He looks down quickly, letting out a sigh of relief. Still clean. The old couple standing behind Tom’s father shriek in horror, as blood splatters all over their fine furniture. Hadrian barely dodges the next splatter, as Tom cuts into the man again, and again, and again, until there is nothing left of him but a bloodied mass on the ground. And then he turns on his grandparents, and Hadrian decides if he really wants to keep his outfit clean, he should just vacate the room entirely.

 

Another man dashes into the room at the sound of all the violence; Hadrian politely holds the door open on his way out. He thinks the guy’s a butler or something— well he’ll be dead in a few moments anyway, so it’s not as if it matters. He returns once the screaming is done, peering in with morbid curiosity. The room is drenched in blood. Tom is simply standing in the middle of it all, equally as soaked as the walls and furniture around him.

 

Hadrian didn’t know what he expected; glee, perhaps. Rage, undoubtedly. Perhaps even the hunger-crazed look of bloodlust.

 

But not this.

 

He joins the boy in the center of the room, staring down at the corpse that was once Tom’s father. Tom is stone cold and completely silent, his features so tight that Hadrian knows he’s about to break.

 

He doesn’t even know what to say. _‘I’m sorry_ ’ seems like a really bad idea right now.

 

So of course what comes out of his mouth is; “At least your father didn’t end up being Darth Vader.”

 

To his surprise, this might've actually seemed to work, causing Tom to shake off his strange mood and snort derisively. “I don’t know who that is.”

 

But at this point it’s a token protest; Hadrian and his weird pop culture references are oddly reassuring right now, in the same way Hadrian’s mere presence is oddly reassuring.

 

On the one hand, he can at least privately admit he’s happy Hadrian is here with him, but on the other he wishes the demon didn’t have to see him turn so emotional. But it’s just… he’s staring down at his father’s corpse right now, and for some reason that hurts a lot more than he thought it would. The man was a total asshole, anyway. And it’s not as if Tom knew him. What did it even matter?

 

And yet he still felt awful anyway. The bodies of his dead relatives - his father, his paternal grandmother and grandfather— are scattered about the sitting room, their lifeless eyes all staring at nothing. There is blood splattered _everywhere_ — all over Tom, the furniture, the centerpiece of white roses on the coffee table, seeping into the carpet. Those eyes are so, _so_ empty, and yet he thinks they’re accusing anyhow. Tom doesn’t know what he was expecting from all this — maybe a small part of him was holding out hope that they would accept him with open arms, that his grandparents would be delighted to meet him, their only grandson, and his father would be stunned but happy to find he had a son. That they didn’t just abandon him, they just hadn’t known about him. That there was still some far flung hope of acceptance and belonging. He knew all along that it would never happen; that it was just a stupid, fanciful dream made up by a lonely boy. He closes his eyes, feeling overwhelmed, then.

 

At least he’s not crying. Although his hands are shaking. He thinks he’s doing an admirable job of keeping most of it off his face though. It’s a good thing he prepared the ritual beforehand; he doesn’t think he’d be able to draw a rune right now.

 

Hadrian is by his side, being far too quiet and respectful for Tom’s liking. He didn’t say anything outlandish when Tom’s grandparents opened the door, even though there were many times during that encounter he was sure Hadrian would have a rude and uncharitable response. He seemed to be holding his tongue, actually, as if he didn’t want to intrude in Tom’s moment. It’s not like the demon at all, and it irritates him for some reason. Hadrian being meek and submissive in any sense of the word is disturbing.

 

In reality, Hadrian’s current silence is mostly due to incredulity and awe. It’s just— he didn’t know Tom had it in him. Or rather he did, but he’d sort of thought he was wrong. Tom was basically just like a prettier and bitchier version of Light Yagami, so he always assumed that somewhere in there was one hell of sadistic bastard; maybe he just hadn’t realized to what extent.

 

Hadrian glances quickly towards the boy next to him, breathing hard and covered almost head to toe in the blood of his relatives.

 

It’s not that he minds all the blood. He’s a demon; he’s seen far worse, and usually he’s the one cutting his enemies into nice, bite-sized portions, so it’s not as if he hasn’t seen it all before. He understands Tom’s need to make it all a little more personal, and there’s nothing like slicing people open to promote a little intimacy. And he really did a number on them, trying out all sorts of dark curses over and over again; the entrails ripping curse, the cutting curse, the blood-boiling curse, and quite a few creatives uses of bombarda.

 

Suffice to say the place is a mess.

 

And Hadrian isn’t entirely sure how to point out that Tom hadn’t actually used the killing curse— which was kind of the point of this whole endeavor.

 

Hadrian scratches his cheek awkwardly. ...The boy does realize that this means Hadrian’s going to have to split his soul for him again, right?

 

Probably not. When Hadrian looks again, Tom appears just as lost in thought as he had been a few seconds ago.

 

“...Tom?”

 

Tom finally tears his eyes away from his father, their resemblance a little too much to bear right now. “What is it?” He asks, tonelessly.

 

Hadrian shifts awkwardly. “Um—  I’m not judging,” he prefaces, quickly, “how you want to kill your family is your choice man, you do you, but…”

 

Tom stares at him fully, the blank look in his eyes clearing. “What?” He frowns.

 

“Well. Um. You didn’t actually use the killing curse, you know,” Hadrian points out.

 

Tom blinks, frown deepening. So? “What does that have to do with—

 

Then his eyes widen.

 

Oh.

 

Shit.

 

He takes the ring out of his pocket, feeling infinitely stupid. He’d gotten so caught up in his own anger he’d completely forgotten why he had wanted to kill his father in the first place. He’d thought the man would make a worthy sacrifice for his next horcrux —  at least this way he could at least serve a purpose in death, since he was pretty worthless alive. Except now his death was pointless as well.

 

Then Tom remembers how he made his last horcrux, and how he’d managed to split his soul that time. Tom flushes a vibrant red. Yeah. That.

 

He can’t really tell, but he thinks the demon looks a little embarrassed. “I guess we could always just kill someone else…”

 

“No.” Tom finds himself protesting immediately, before he can think better of it. “It would be rather pointless to let this whole evening go to waste.” He adds quickly, before Hadrian can get the wrong idea. (Or the right idea, technically.)

 

Hadrian simply stares at him, nodding silently.

 

Fuck, it’s all too much. He just killed his father, his grandparents, and some guy he thinks was his uncle— or maybe just the butler— who had come up when he heard all the screaming, and their lifeless bodies are all lying around him, blood pooling into the ornate carpet. No, he didn’t just murder them; he viciously and brutally eviscerated them one by one. And on top of that there’s this whole debacle with Hadrian and his stupid, giant, crush for the demon.

 

It all just sort of rises up and ousts the more rational side of his brain, so Tom isn’t really thinking when he strides right up to Hadrian and crashes their lips together.

 

Surprisingly, Hadrian doesn’t protest at all.

 

//

 

Okay, so maybe Hadrian should reassess his prior statement. Today was a fucking mess, but as it turns out, it wasn’t an entire waste after all.

 

@OG Starboy [20:22]:

_Turns out date with bae went great! #killingit #literally_

 

 


End file.
